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HISTORY OF JESUS 



BY 



W: H. FURNESS 



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W^3 



BOSTON 

WM. CROSBY AND H. P. NICHOLS. 
1850, 






Entered, according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1850, by 

W. H. FURNESS, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the 

Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 



The Library 

of C< 



WASHJ 

STEREOTYPED BY J. FAGAN, PHILADELPHIA. 



I have long had a strong desire to ascer- 
tain the simple truth concerning Jesus of 
Nazareth. To this end I published, some 
• years ago, a small work, entitled, " Remarks 
on the Four Gospels ;" which was followed, 
two years afterwards, by a larger volume, 
under the title of "Jesus and his Biogra- 
phers;" a reprint of the first book, with 
considerable additions. Without recurring 
to these publications, I have written the 
present volume anew throughout ; and in it 
I have attempted to tell the Story of the 
Life of Jesus, with as little discussion of 
points that may be questioned, as possible. 
I have had no controversial purpose. My 
aim has been to state many of the principal 
facts related of Jesus, as I apprehend them, 
to show the truth of the most wonderful of 

histories. 

W. H. F. 
Philadelphia, May 1, 1850. 

(3) 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 
9 — 35. 

THE JEWS — THE DESIGN OP THIS BOOK — THE BIRTH 
OP JESUS — HIS MOTHER — HIS CHILDHOOD — HIS 
GIFTS. 

CHAPTER II. 
36—54. 

THE SELF-CONSECRATION OP JESUS — ITS REVELATIONS 
AND ITS TRIALS. 



CHAPTER III. 
55 — 76. 

MANNER OP TEACHING — SUBJECTS OP TEACHING — 
FIRST APPEARANCE IN PUBLIC — THE SENSATION 
PRODUCED — CAPERNAUM — NAZARETH. 

(5) 



VI CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER IV. 
77 — 103. 

SERMON ON THE MOUNT — PARABLES — PROPHETIC 
GIFT INCIDENTS — SCRIBES AND PHARISEES. 

CHAPTEE V. 
104 — 138. 

THE SABBATH — THE PENITENT WOMAN — A SIGN — 
PHARISEES BLASPHEME — BREAD OF HEAVEN — VISIT 
TO JERUSALEM — THE TEMPLE — NICODEMUS — SA- 
MARITAN WOMAN — THE NATIONAL FESTIVALS. 



CHAPTER VI. 
139 — 166. 

THE PERSONAL DISCIPLES OF JESUS — THEIR ATTACH- 
MENT to him — peter's avowal of faith — the 

DREAM OF PETER — THE CURE OF A LUNATIC — 
THE DISPUTES OF THE DISCIPLES. 



CHAPTER VII. 
167 — 202. 

JESUS PASSES THROUGH SAMARIA — CHILDREN — THE 

RICH YOUTH — THE HOPES OF THE DISCIPLES 

JERICHO — THE BLIND MAN — ZACCHEUS — THE 
KINGDOM OF HEAVEN — LAZARUS. 



CONTENTS. Vii 

CHAPTER VIII. 

203 — 237. 

A COUNCIL OP THE PRIESTS — JESUS AT BETHANY — 
MARY — PUBLIC ENTRANCE INTO JERUSALEM — 
GREEKS — PHARISEES — THE LAST SUPPER — JUDAS 
— CONSOLATIONS — PRAYER. 



CHAPTER IX. 

238 — 265. 

THE GARDEN — THE HOUR OP DARKNESS — THE AR- 
REST — THE HIGH PRIEST — PETER — THE TRIAL — 
HEROD — PILATE — CRUCIFIXION — DEATH. 



CHAPTER X. 

266 — 291. 

JESUS DESTROYED BY A PACTION — STARTLING CIR- 
CUMSTANCES ATTENDING HIS DEATH — APPARITIONS 

— THE BODY TAKEN DOWN PROM THE CROSS — THE 
BURIAL — THE GUARD — DISCIPLES DISCONSOLATE 

— RESURRECTION — THE WOMEN AT THE TOMB — 
REAPPEARANCE TO MARY — TESTIMONY IRRESIST- 
IBLE — CONCLUSION. 



HISTOEY OF JESUS. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE JEWS — THE DESIGN OF THIS BOOK — THE BIRTH 
OF JESUS — HIS MOTHER — HIS CHILDHOOD — HIS 
GIFTS. 

The Hebrew race is a great race. With no civil 
order, no country, its remnants have been scattered 
now for centuries over the world, maintaining a 
national existence without any national institutions. 
What a vitality does this fact disclose ! Such a 
tenacity of life belongs only to the mightiest ele- 
ment of our nature, religion. 

If we had no direct knowledge of the forefathers 
of a people, who have so wonderfully survived 
changes which, in all other cases, annihilate nations, 
we might safely infer that their progenitors were no 
ordinary men. A people, whose character is so 

(9) 



10 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

powerfully marked, could have come from no com- 
mon lineage. 

But we do know something of the origin of this 
face. They have a great history ; a history which 
has published itself to the world. They trace their 
origin and their fortunes to world-renowned patri- 
archs, whose forms we may descry, standing out in 
colossal majesty amidst the darkness of the past. 
They look back with unwavering faith to one illus- 
trious leader in particular, who, thousands of years 
ago, when the nation was in the most abject bond- 
age, appeared as the deliverer of his people, lead- 
ing them from the land in which they groaned as 
slaves to a fertile country, where they grew to 
great power. This personage was a true king by 
the grace of God, qualified by nature to be the 
founder of an empire. Wonderful traditions exist 
concerning him. But his greatness lay chiefly in 
the simplicity and energy of his religious faith. In 
an age when rude images of wood and stone wer& 
everywhere regarded as sufficient symbols of the 
unseen objects of human worship, the founder of 
the Israelitish State had apprehensions of the One 
Invisible so pure, that he sacredly forbade his 
people to make any image whatever of God. Nu- 
merous laws are attributed to him ; but, as a law- 



HISTORY OP JESUS. 11 

giver, he is immortalized by " The Ten Command- 
ments," enjoining those simple personal and social 
duties, which are also enforced by the universal 
sense of mankind. He was succeeded by other 
ruling men, — priests, kings and prophets, — an illus- 
trious line, through whom the spirit of the national 
religion was transmitted. 

The fortunes of this people have been various. 
Oftentimes they were engaged in bloody wars. 
Sometimes, led away by the imposing rites of other 
religions, they deserted their own more simple faith. 
Then appeared among them, like stern messengers 
from another world, individuals overflowing with 
the mighty power of ancient truth, who, in speech 
flaming with the grandest imagery, rebuked the sins 
of the people, and called them back to the One God 
of their fathers, who required of them, above all 
ceremonies, the practice of justice and humanity. 
These men, persecuted at first, came to be revered 
in the character which they claimed, as heaven-sent 
messengers, moved by a divine inspiration. And 
no one can now read the record of their words, 
without perceiving that they were in communication 
with Truth and Power. They had a vision of those 
eternal principles, which to discern is to see and 
know God, so far as God can be known to man. 



12 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

Among the great men of this nation, there was one 
prince, who, though by no means stainless, was yet 
inspired with a genius so poetic and so devout, that 
to this hour his songs are the adopted language 
of devotion throughout Christendom. 

It is not to my purpose to dwell at any length 
upon the history and character of this wonderful 
people. Two considerations only do I wish to 
premise. 

In the first place, to repeat briefly what I have 
said above, such was the origin of this people, 
such have been their fortunes, and such the guides 
and teachers that, from time to time, appeared 
among them, that they stand by themselves, in 
respect of religion, in the history of mankind. 
What other nations have been in art, law, philoso- 
phy, arms, and enterprise, this people has proved 
in regard to religion — moulding the religious 
character of great nations. And the fact that now, 
although they have no power, no place as a nation, 
they are not only found everywhere, but that their 
sacred books are held in superstitious veneration 
far and wide beyond their pale, and the phraseology 
of their scriptures is the household speech of gene- 
rations, attests the depth and might of the religious 
influence which has so acted upon the world. 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 13 

I remark, secondly, that in connection with the 
intensity of their religious faith there naturally 
sprung up that pride which has marked the cha- 
racter of this people, and which no reverses have 
ever been able to extinguish. Not that there was 
a larger infusion of this quality in their nature than 
in that of other races ; but it has sprung out of 
their circumstances. As no other nation has clung 
so devotedly to their religion, so no other nation 
has ever looked upon the rest of the world with so 
profound a contempt. Conscious of the essential 
greatness of their faith, they have held themselves 
the chosen of Heaven, and all other men as out- 
casts. It is important to remark, therefore, that 
the desperate bigotry, with which they clung to the 
Truth which it was given them to possess, grew to 
be the very strongest obstacle to the diffusion of 
Truth ; the intrinsic force of which was restrained 
and fettered by the tightness with which they held 
to it as their private possession ; and no words can 
well describe the tenacity with which they grasped 
it, especially when it was their sole distinction ; and 
so far from having anything else, any national rank 
to pride themselves upon, they were objects of per- 
secution and hatred. But as Truth is vital, and 
partakes essentially of the omnipotence of God, it 
2 



14 HISTORY OF JEStTS. 

must needs have been that the time would come, in 
the course of things, when, unless Jewish pride 
relaxed its hold, the Truth would expand ; shivering 
into atoms the nation that so madly thought to 
keep it to itself, as an exclusive badge of honour. 

The crisis came. It was inevitable in the eternal 
order of things. We have its history in the life of 
Jesus, and in the events which rapidly followed 
upon that life. His appearance was in conformity 
to unchangeable truth and nature. While in him 
a new development of the religious element had its 
origin, in him the concentrated force of Truth 
uprose with a victorious power, and the nation that 
had so long kept it to itself was ground to pow- 
der; the mighty waters, so long pent up within 
those narrow Hebrew precincts, broke forth; and 
although they soon lost their crystal purity by 
mingling with a thousand turbid streams, neverthe- 
less, inundated a hemisphere. 

I wish now so to tell the Story of the Life of Jesus, 
that it may be seen how it consists with itself and 
with all things. It has been for long ages repre- 
sented as an exception, an anomaly ; and of course 
men know not what to make of it. It is regarded 
with a superstitious awe so deep as to paralyse the 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 15 

common sense of those who read it. It is with- 
drawn from the range of human apprehension and 
sympathy. I wish, if I may, so to tell it that, 
without any distortion of its facts, it shall be re- 
stored to its rightful place in the order of nature ; 
where not only its reality will become self-evident, 
like the sun and the earth, and whatever else there 
is that is, but it will be seen to be a central light, 
shining on all the aspects of human life, and all the 
topics of human thought. In attempting to fulfil 
this wish, I do not aim at completeness ; I shall not 
make use of all the facts furnished by the records : 
not that I reject all the facts that I may omit, but 
because all that I desire will be done, if I shall 
succeed in showing that the accounts we have of 
Jesus contain substantially a history seen to be 
true, by its perfect consistency with itself and with 
all truth. When this is done, all historical evidence, 
although not without its value, ceases to be essen- 
tial. The truth of the Story will be visible in the 
Story itself; to which such theories as that of 
Strauss, however difficult it may be to combat them 
on philosophical grounds, and however they may fit 
other cases, admit of no application* 

At the time the Story commences/ Judea was a 



16 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

province of the Roman Empire ; and the hearts of 
the people were chafed to madness by the oppression 
of that hated power. Their religion had become a 
cumbrous form. Its temple stood a wonder to the 
world ; but the God of justice and love was no 
longer present, as of old, in the heart of the nation. 
The sweetness of Truth was changed into the bit- 
terness of national pride and hate. The salt had 
well nigh lost its savor. In the decay of the reli- 
gion of the people, the only idea which sustained the 
life of the nation, was a new order of things, a 
heavenly kingdom, which was believed to be at hand. 
How such an expectation was awakened and 
fostered, it is easy to gather from the nature of the 
case. The sacred books, which the Jews so pro- 
foundly revered, bore record to the faithful provi- 
dence of the Grod of Abraham in all the past 
afflictions of Israel. And the people could not 
suppose that they were now to be forsaken. Writh- 
ing as they were in the extremity of their humilia- 
tion under the Roman sceptre, they took heart and 
hope as they pondered the thrilling but indefinite 
language of their time-honored seers. There they 
found what they sought : predictions of a glory yet 
to be realized. They caught at every word that 
seemed to justify their faith and their hopes. And 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 17 

thus the whole nation was gazing with earnest eyes 
into the near future ; eager to descry the heaven- 
sent leader who should break their chains, and 
exalt them to a power wide as the world, to a glory 
that should cast the times of David and Solomon 
into the shade. 

In order to see yet more clearly how this state 
of national feeling was generated, let it be consi- 
dered that the Jewish polity was then, as we now 
know from history, drawing nigh to extinction. 
Although it ceased not without a bloody struggle, 
attesting its vitality to the last, yet at the period 
of which I speak there must have been premonitions 
of the crisis ; the nation must have been more or 
less aware of its coming end ; although there were 
but few — although, indeed, there was but one, who 
read the signs of the times aright. Great national 
changes fling their shadows before; and men of 
ordinary intelligence, but of no great depth of in- 
sight, have often anticipated and foretold their 
approach. The old French Revolution was visible 
to many observers before it actually broke out. 
Thus was it, I suppose, with the Jewish people. In 
their fiery impatience under a foreign yoke, they 
felt that things could not long continue as they 
were, that a change was at hand ; and they fondly 
2* 



18 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

trusted that the golden age, foretold, as they be- 
lieved, by their prophets, was about to begin. 

While the nation was in this increasing fever of 
expectation, there dwelt in the obscure town of 
Nazareth, in Galilee, a woman named Mary, mar- 
ried to a man by the name of Joseph, who had 
probably been married before, and had a number 
of children. Mary's first-born was named Jesus. 

Of his parentage and birth we have no distinct 
knowledge, beyond what I have stated. Of the 
four different accounts of him which have come 
down to us, and which undesignedly show, in their 
whole structure, that they were derived from per- 
sons familiarly associated with him, two contain no 
notices whatever of his birth, and one of these 
purports to have been written by his most intimate 
friend. In the other two accounts, a few circum- 
stances are mentioned concerning his parents and 
his birth, which, if not wholly fictitious, are yet of 
so mixed a character, that it is scarcely possible to 
determine the precise amount of truth which they 
contain. One account, Matthew's, states that Jesus 
was not born in the due course of nature, but was 
conceived by a direct act of Divine Power, before 
the marriage of his parents had taken place. 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 19 

I reject this statement for many reasons; but 
mainly, because, supposing it not to be true, it is 
very easy to see how it originated. The story of 
the birth of Jesus, such as it is, is little else than 
an account of remarkable dreams or visions of his 
parents, mixed with effusions of an obviously poet- 
ical character, hymns. It is just such a story as 
was to be expected, when the subsequent life of 
Jesus is considered. His career was so extraor- 
dinary — it created so much wonder — stimulated 
so powerfully the sentiments of veneration and awe, 
and the love of the wonderful, that nothing could 
well be more natural, under the circumstances, than 
that marvellous stories should get abroad respecting 
his birth. These stories may have been pure fic- 
tions, generated by the love of the marvellous which 
the great life of Jesus did so much to inflame. Or 
they were exaggerations of certain simple and very 
natural incidents, magnified by wonder. 

That the mother of Jesus was a woman of no 
ordinary character, the character of her son leads 
us confidently to infer. The mother of such a son 
must have been a most rare person, a woman of 
deep religious tenderness, filled with the best spirit 
of the old Hebrew faith, almost worthy of the 
world-wide homage which has been paid her. 



20 HISTORY 02 JESUS. 

Such being her character, it is not at all impro- 
bable that, being of a devout parentage, betrothed 
at a period when the whole nation was profoundly 
stirred by the hope of a heaven-sent Deliverer, 
sharing herself in that hope, she may have had her 
imagination inspired by the idea of becoming the 
mother of the child who should fulfil the predictions 
of the prophets and the fervid desire of the nation. 
Especially was this likely to be the case, if her 
intended husband was, or was only supposed to be, 
descended from that royal line, which, as it was 
believed, was to produce the prince so passionately 
looked for. As to be childless was considered a 
calamity among her people, so, on the other hand, 
the prospect of becoming the lawful mother of 
children was hailed with religious fervor, as a 
gracious token from Heaven. That Mary should 
have formed such hopes as I have mentioned, even 
before her marriage ; that they should have so filled 
her imagination as to give rise to a vivid dream or 
vision of an angel descending from heaven and 
saluting her as the chosen mother of the illustrious 
child, is a supposition perfectly in keeping with her 
presumed character, and with all that we know of 
human nature. And so far from its breathing the 
slightest stain upon the virgin purity of her thoughts 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 21 

that she should have such a vision, it may be re- 
garded as a touching indication of the spotless 
innocence of her mind, that she should dream, and 
in her waking moments believe, that she was to 
give birth to a child upon such extraordinary and 
spiritual conditions, without any thought of mortal 
passion. In this way, we may consider the recorded 
vision of "the Annunciation' ' as a sign of that 
saintly chastity, which, as Milton says, is 



so dear to Heaven, 



That when a soul is found sincerely so, 
A thousand liveried angels lackey her; 
Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt, 
And in clear dream and solemn vision, 
Tell her of things that no gross ear can hear. 

Deeply impressed by the dream, in confiding 
innocence Mary communicated it to Joseph, with 
the fullest expression of her own faith in it. And 
so it may be seen how he was at first on the point 
of c putting her away.' But, whatever may have 
been his suspicions, the purity of her soul was so 
transparent, that he paused; and when the child 
was born in the due course of nature, his misgivings 
disappeared, and, reverencing her innocence, he 
believed probably that his wife had been the re- 
cipient of spiritual communications. The name 



22 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

that was given to the child, Jesus, although not an 
uncommon name among the Jews, would seem, by 
its signification, savior, benefactor, to reveal the 
hopes of his parents. 

Joseph also may have had dreams, according to 
the record. It was natural that it should be so. 
And it was in entire conformity with the character 
of the age and the people, and with human nature 
itself, that a peculiar importance should be attached 
to dreams. Visitations of this kind are yet an 
unfathomed mystery. At all times, even now, 
when we fancy we can explain everything, a vivid 
dream, occurring at a particular juncture, impresses 
the mind so powerfully, that it may readily be 
imagined that the dreams of Mary and Joseph 
would, in that age, be received as unquestionable 
messages from heaven. 

The experiences of the parents of Jesus, in re- 
lation to his birth, were probably kept at first to 
themselves and their own immediate circle; and 
would never, perhaps, have been repeated — cer- 
tainly would never have got abroad — had not the 
child proved remarkable. But afterwards, when as 
a man he became the object of all men's wonder, 
every circumstance relating to him grew into inter- 
est and importance. And then it was that the 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 23 

visions of his parents at the time of his birth got 
rumored abroad ; variously distorted and magnified, 
as is the way in such cases, as we all know. 

When, years after the career of Jesus had closed, 
some of his friends, yielding to the demand that 
naturally arose for the work, set themselves to give 
some account of him in writing, two of the four 
who assumed the office of his biographers, under- 
taking to begin at the beginning, put on record 
such statements respecting his birth as were current 
at the time. That they took what came to hand, 
without examining very carefully the claims of 
these statements to authenticity, is evident enough 
from the fact already mentioned : namely, that two 
of the four make no mention whatever of his birth, 
and the accounts of the two who notice it are very 
brief, and are interspersed with passages of an 
obviously poetical character ; as, for instance, the 
beautiful words, taken chiefly from the Psalms of 
David, which are put into the mouth of Mary, upon 
being saluted by her cousin Elizabeth as the chosen 
mother. 

In regard to these last-named passages, we have 
only to consider, if the art of printing had then 
been known, with what a multitude of compositions, 
fictitious or semi-fictitious, poetry and prose, the 



24 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

press would have teemed; all having the life of 
Jesus and its various incidents for their themes : — 
we have only to bring to mind this consideration, 
to see how it was that such notices of his birth as 
have come down to us had their origin. The very 
reality and power of his life must have generated 
numerous compositions of this sort, oral or writ- 
ten. Had there been no such fictions, it might 
well be doubted whether there were any facts. 
There was no blame and no harm in such pro- 
ductions. They received no additional authority 
at the time, from being adopted by Matthew and 
Luke. On the contrary, these writers adopted 
them, because their general reception had already 
invested them with a sort of authority, and be- 
cause, while they accorded with Jewish opinions 
and modes of thought, they presented to the minds 
of these writers nothing directly at variance with 
their notions of the character and claims of 
Jesus. 

I have thus endeavored to set forth as distinctly 
as possible what I regard as the most likely account 
of the notices which have been handed down to us 
of the birth of Jesus. It may be that they are 
founded in truth to the extent I have stated. Or 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 25 

they may have even less foundation in fact. The 
question is really of small moment. Suffice it to 
say, that I see nothing in the character or contents 
of the records, which forbids me to believe that 
Jesus was the son of Joseph and Mary. 

Of his childhood, saving one incident, we have 
no direct information. It is recorded that when 
he was twelve years of age he went with his 
parents, in celebration of one of the great national 
festivals, to the metropolis, Jerusalem. On that 
occasion, when his parents had set out, at the end 
of the holidays, on their way home, they missed 
their son. After inquiring in vain for him amongst 
the numerous company with which they travelled, 
they returned to the city, and after a while found 
him in the Temple, surrounded by teachers of the 
Law, questioning them, and being questioned in 
return. The incident is striking, and has often 
been represented on the canvass. Behold the boy, 
with earnest eyes and a transparent openness of 
expression, standing amidst a crowd of curious 
spectators : men venerable for their office and their 
age. His intelligence awakens their wonder. His 
earnestness touches their hearts. He has forgotten 
parents and home in his eager thirst for truth, 
3 



26 HISTORY OP JESUS. 

If we receive this incident as true, — and it is in 
such accordance with all else that we learn of him, 
that we have no reason to reject it, — we may 
gather from it that, at a very early age, his cha- 
racter was so far formed that his parents were not 
anxious to keep him always under their eye. 
Though they knew not where he was, they were 
not immediately alarmed at his non-appearance, but 
suffered a whole day to pass before they turned 
back to look for him in the city. We see also that, 
when a boy, he was possessed with a conviction of 
his relationship to the Unseen Father. When his 
mother, upon finding him in the Temple, mildly 
reproached him for the anxiety he had occasioned 
his father and herself, "Why did you seek me?" 
he replied, " did you not know that I ought to be 
here, where you have found me, in my Father's 
house?" intimating that his parents should have 
looked for him nowhere else. So it appears that, 
as a mere child, he was deeply conscious of the 
obligation that bound him to a higher than his 
earthly parents. We are told no more of his 
childhood and youth than that he lived at Nazareth, 
where he was brought up, being subject to his 
parents, growing in wisdom and stature, in favor 
with God and man. 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 27 

At what early age a sense of his great powers 
began to awaken in him, I cannot tell. That he 
was most graciously and specially endowed by 
nature, — a being of extraordinary completeness 
and elevation, — that his natural gifts were unpre- 
cedented, his whole history shows. Of all born 
of woman, no one has appeared like him. He 
represented, not a class or an age, but humanity in 
its highest form. 

But when I speak of him thus, as one by him- 
self, I would have it distinctly understood that I do 
not consider his being as a miracle in any other 
sense than that in which the being of every man, 
of everything, is a miracle. Peculiar, original as 
he was, his existence was strictly within the course 
of nature. There is nothing in nature that for- 
bids, everything, in fact, authorizes us to look for 
every variety of endowment, both in kind and 
degree, in individuals. There is nothing in nature 
that renders it impossible for a human being to be 
born, possessed of all the gifts which Jesus pos- 
sessed. I believe, therefore, that all the power 
which he manifested, his intuitive perception of 
truth, his prophetic insight, that great gift, by 
which, with a simple act of his will, he subdued 
disease, restored sight to the blind, and called the 



28 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

dead out of their deep sleep, were all native to him ; 
that all these things came just as easily and natu- 
rally to him as the most common movements of our 
limbs do to us. 

Let me state here in a few words, once for all, 
the reason why I believe this. After long and 
careful examination, I see in the action of the 
powers, which Jesus exercised, the inimitable 
method of nature. I see that they are real and 
natural in the fact that their manner of working 
is like that of all natural powers. There is a 
certain simplicity, a certain truth, not to be mis- 
taken, which belongs only to what is natural. This 
characteristic is luminous in Jesus; and nowhere 
more so, than in the action of those gifts which 
were peculiar to him. These, though new, wear 
the same look of truth and nature as the trees of 
the field and the stars of heaven. And this suffices 
to satisfy me that the power he is represented as 
exercising was not only real, but as natural to him 
as the commonest power we possess is to us. 

To return now to the - question proposed : At 
what period — how early — did he wake to a con- 
sciousness of himself ? No decisive answer can be 
given to this question. I believe that a sense of 
the greatness of his being and his destiny began to 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 29 

break upon hhn very early, with the dawn of his 
reason ; and that in his case, as in others, the in- 
fluences to which his childhood and youth were 
subjected, parental instruction, the gentle and ear- 
nest looks, the words and prayers of his mother, 
the ever-varying spectacle of life and nature, — all 
united to nurture in his bosom the conviction of his 
peculiar nearness to the Source of all Power and 
Good. In fine, in him the soul came to a know- 
ledge of itself as it always comes ; only with an 
unequalled stillness and steadiness, revealed in 
the beauty and completeness of its mature 
growth. 

Let it be considered that the nearest and most 
sacred relation of every human soul is that which 
it sustains to God. God is not only the Maker 
and Benefactor of every man, but He is present in 
every man. Conscience is God's "intimate pre- 
sence in the soul." The familiar dictate of duty is 
the living voice of the Almighty. 

The greatness of Jesus consisted specially in 
this, — that he saw, with full and unchanging clear- 
ness, this fact. He was conscious of the Divinity 
in him. His whole public life, all that he said and 
did, reveals his consciousness of God as the central 
soul of his being. He identified himself with the 
3* 



30 HISTORY OF JESTJS. 

Everlasting Father. He knew that he was in God, 
and that God was in him. 

He did not come out into the world until he was 
about thirty years of age. Previously to that 
period, he lived in a retirement of which we have 
no direct knowledge. I have mentioned the only 
incident which is told of his childhood. From that 
incident, but chiefly from the whole tenor of his 
public life, I infer that the period spent at home, 
in comparative seclusion, was to him a time of 
healthy, uninterrupted, growth and culture. Day 
by day, in the simple occupations of a private 
sphere, toiling, perhaps, with his father, according 
to a tradition ; performing all filial offices ; commun- 
ing with his kindred and associates, he was foster- 
ing into steadily-increasing strength, a sense of the 
Divine Presence in his soul. He learned to see all 
things in their direct relation to God and Truth, to 
penetrate appearances, to discern invisible realities, 
to appreciate the true life, and all the burthens and 
perils and destinies of man. There, in the despised 
town of Nazareth, amidst simple-minded people, in 
a lowly home, the most perfect soul that ever dwelt 
in the flesh was gradually growing into full beauty 
and strength, under the common influences of life 
and Providence. Possessing by nature the clearest 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 81 

spiritual vision, he did not require miracles to be 
wrought for his instruction. He did not need 
supernatural communications, in the popular sense 
of the word supernatural, to reveal the Father to 
him. For the Divine Voice was heard by him in 
his own convictions, with a clearness, in comparison 
with which the voice of many thunders is but a 
far-off echo ; and in the most familiar aspects of 
nature, the Divine benignity was revealed to him. 

According to human apprehensions, when God 
designs to send forth one who shall be filled with 
his spirit without measure, and be the representative 
of his majesty and the herald of his love, he must 
have recourse to the most imposing methods, and 
work stupendous miracles, and voices must be 
heard by the outward ear 'of his chosen servant, 
and angels must go to and fro, visibly ascending 
and descending. But His ways are not as our 
ways. In that mean place, in an unlettered neigh- 
borhood, amidst the homeliest routine of human 
life, God's holy child was prepared so to speak, to 
live, and die, that the salvation of a world was in- 
volved in his being. To one like Jesus, even so 
poor a spot as Nazareth was full of the music of 
angel voices. 

Had we any accounts of the childhood and pri- 



32 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

vate life of Jesus, they would possess an inexpress- 
ible interest. But we have no such accounts, and 
can only feebly paint to ourselves the Divine Child. 
Whatever may have been his personal appearance, 
the fashion of his features, the color of his eyes 
and his hair, it is impossible that a soul like his, 
tender, true and fearless, a mind so full of light, 
should not have invested his person with a beauty 
which must have been felt, which no pen or pencil 
could portray, and of which the halo of the old 
painters is only a dim sign. There must have been 
a simple and yet more than princely dignity in his 
manners. How must his whole form have been 
irradiated by the divine flame of those emotions 
which glowed in his bosom ! How transparent and 
how penetrating those beaming eyes, as they 
scanned earth and heaven, and penetrated the 
hearts of men ! 

At what precise period Jesus became conscious 
of the special power which he possessed over dis- 
ease and death, and was prompted to exercise it, it 
is impossible to determine. It may be that he 
became aware of it at an early age, and that then, 
shrinking from publicity, he abstained from its 
exercise. But without being confident, I incline to 
believe that, although his power was born with him, 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 33 

it was not until after his public and formal surren- 
der of himself to his work at his baptism, when, as 
we shall see, an almost overwhelming revelation of 
himself broke upon him, that he became fully con- 
scious of his extraordinary power, and was moved 
to use it. And that then he knew not how he 
wrought such wonderful effects, but only that they 
were wrought by the power of the All-indwelling 
God. As a child is moved to speak or to walk, — 
essentially, speech and motion are as truly miracu- 
lous as anything recorded of Jesus, — so he had a 
clear, involuntary consciousness of this singular 
power ; and at first and always it flowed out natu- 
rally and spontaneously into act, without hesitancy 
or deliberation. It was his genius, sacred and 
unparalleled; and acted as all genius acts, like 
inspiration; which it actually is. Certain it is, 
that he himself thought little of it. Never once 
did he exercise it for the mere sake of showing it. 
Not even when a dense mass of men were heaving 
with the wonder it excited, was he moved to the 
slightest self-elation. It was used by him in the 
simple service of suffering humanity, and with no ul- 
terior end ; and therefore he might truly appeal to 
it, as attesting most triumphantly the divineness of 
his authority. Only once, and that was just before 



34 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

he appeared in public, did the thought present 
itself to him of availing himself of the power which 
he was conscious of possessing, to serve his own 
private purpose. He repelled it as the suggestion 
of the Evil One. Always afterwards, he used his 
great gifts with the unconscious simplicity of child- 
hood and nature. If he wondered at all, I should 
rather think that it was because others could not 
do the same things. Again and again, in terms the 
most explicit, he attributed the effects he produced 
to the state of their minds on whom those effects 
were wrought ; declaring that all things are possible 
to the believing, that if a man have faith only as 
a grain of mustard-seed, he would be able to do 
even greater things than he himself had done. 

In attributing such importance to faith in those 
whom he healed, I do not understand him as, for 
one moment, disclaiming the existence of his own 
power ; because they could not have had confidence 
in him without cause. There must have been that 
in him, in which they could have faith ; otherwise 
faith would have been impossible. Had he really 
possessed no special power, there might have been 
delusion ; there could have been no faith. But in 
the act of exercising his power, especially upon a 
person whose confidence in him w T as full and im- 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 35 

plicit, he was so entirely unconscious of any exer- 
tion ; the results produced, extraordinary as they 
were, followed so promptly, — they must have 
seemed to him, so far as he was concerned, to come 
of themselves, — that he was naturally more im- 
pressed with the energy of the faith which rendered 
these results so easy, than with his own power, 
which went forth from him as readily as his breath. 
We see here, as in all else, how far exalted he was 
above all self-reference. Instead of jealously ap- 
propriating to himself all possible credit, he turned 
the attention of the people to the point where it 
especially concerned them to have their attention 
turned, to that faith which it was for them to 
cherish. The faith of the suffering was only a 
condition of their cure ; still, it was an important 
condition, to which it behoved them to take good 
heed. We see by the light of the sun ; but in our 
wonder at the power of light, we must remember 
that, were it not for our own eyes, vision would be 
impossible. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE SELF-CONSECRATION OF JESUS — ITS REVELA- 
TIONS AND ITS TRIALS. 

When Jesus was about thirty years of age, the 
whole country was startled by the apparition, in the 
desert, near the river Jordan, of a man, who caught 
the public attention, and stirred deeply the religious 
sensibilities of the nation. His garb, his ascetic 
manner of life, and his mode of address, were all 
fitted to impress powerfully the Jewish imagination. 
Clad in a garment of coarse camel's-hair, with a 
girdle of leather, subsisting upon the wild produce 
of the desert, in him, at first sight, the venerable 
line of the ancient prophets seemed to be revived. 
And when, adopting the consecrated language of 
ancient prophecy, he assumed the office of the 
herald of the expected Prince, announcing the 
(36) 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 37 

approach of that personage, a note was struck to 
which all hearts responded. He summoned the 
people to prepare the way, to make a straight, 
smooth path for the heaven-sent king to come with 
his retinue, to level the mountains and raise the 
valleys. By this phraseology, sacred to the hearts 
of his countrymen, he called on all classes to re- 
form, the high to humble themselves, the low to 
be exalted ; and, in sign of this preparative cleans- 
ing, he required them to bathe in the waters of the 
Jordan ; a form according with the genius and cus- 
toms of the country. He became known as the 
Cleanser or Baptizer, and was styled John, the 
Baptist. He condemned, in the strongest language, 
the corruptions of the times, and of those who 
assumed the religious guidance of the nation. The 
vices and crimes of the powerful attracted his severe 
rebuke. By the austerity of his life and instruc- 
tions, he made a deep impression on the popular 
mind, and was soon generally regarded as a true 
prophet. 

From the scanty notices that have come to us of 
this singular person, we learn that he was a kins- 
man of Jesus. But the circumstance that reveals 
their mutual acquaintance and previous intimacy, 
is the striking manner in which John received 
4 



88 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

Jesus, when the latter came to him to be baptized. 
" Comest thou to me !" exclaimed the Desert Seer, 
who, owning no authority but God's, would be 
slow, we should suppose, to recognise any human 
superior, "I have need to be baptized of thee!" 
From these words, we may safely infer that John had 
had such knowledge of Jesus as created in his mind 
the deepest reverence for him. They had, I doubt 
not, communed much in private. They had talked 
together of the promised kingdom, of the corruption 
and blindness of the leaders of the people, of the fate 
which the degraded state of the nation portended, 
and of the sacred interests of Truth ; and in this 
communion, the fervid soul of John had been 
kindled into a flame. His faith was quickened in 
the near approach of the great revolution. And 
although he afterwards said that he did not know 
Jesus — did not know his greatness until it broke 
upon him at the baptism of Jesus, still I believe 
that, even before he appeared in the desert, John 
cherished a strong hope, which needed only the im- 
pression made on him at the baptism of Jesus to 
become an assured faith, that his revered friend 
and kinsman was destined to something great, 
and would meet the excited expectations of the 
nation, proving to be the very personage whom 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 39 

all men were looking for. We may thus see how 
Jesus exercised, in their private intercourse, on 
the ardent temperament of the Baptist such an in- 
spiring influence, that the latter, without any con- 
cert or understanding with Jesus, was, in great part, 
prompted thereby to the course which he pursued. 

With the crowds that went into the desert to see 
and hear John, Jesus, we may suppose, went also 
several times perhaps, before he offered himself 
for baptism. Accordingly, John, observing Jesus 
among his hearers, told the people that there was 
one standing among them so much his superior, 
that he himself was not worthy to perform for him 
the most humble office, to unfasten his sandals. 
He declared that the person referred to was about 
to winnow the nation, burning up the chaff and 
gathering the wheat ; and that his power, compared 
with his own, was like wind and fire from heaven, 
compared with the water which he (John) used in 
baptism, and which was superficial in its influence ; 
while wind and fire were subtle elements, that would 
penetrate and search the nation to its centre. But, 
however this may be, it appears that Jesus and 
John were intimately acquainted, and that John 
had conceived the greatest veneration for Jesus, 
and in his heart surmised that he would prove to be 



40 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

the expected Deliverer of Israel. It is necessary 
to keep in view the reverence for Jesus "which 
glowed in the bosom of John, in order to discern 
the living truth of the account which we have re- 
ceived of the baptism of Jesus. 

When Jesus saw the whole world, as it were, — 
crowds came from afar, — moved by the appearance 
and words of John, he appears to have considered 
a state of things so propitious to his purpose, as a 
summons to begin the great work which he had so 
long meditated, and for which his life had been a 
steady and gradual preparation. But a step so 
momentous to himself and to others, was not to be 
taken without the greatest solemnity. It involved 
an entire change. He was to quit the security of 
his peaceful home, and cast himself upon the 
bristling passions of the ignorant and the depraved. 
He was to forsake shelter and friends, and expose 
himself to the violence of mobs, and the power of 
the great. Such a step was equivalent to dooming 
himself to constant danger and a speedy and cruel 
end. He did not enter upon such a course without 
thought and prayer. It called for all his resolution. 
He went to John to be baptized, to cleanse his 
heart, by a significant form, of all weakness and fear. 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 41 

It is commonly represented that, in presenting 
himself to be baptized, Jesus could have been ac- 
tuated by no higher motive than a desire to conform 
to a common and commendable custom, and to give 
to it, by thus conforming, the sanction of his ex- 
ample. But I believe that his baptism was, and that 
he was conscious that it was, a most momentous and 
trying point in his life. He did not go to be bap- 
tized merely for the sake of doing as others did, or 
of inducing others to do like him, but for his own 
sake. His whole mind and heart were concentrated 
in the occasion, when, with a soul melting in un- 
utterable prayer, he surrendered himself once for 
all and for ever to an unstipulating obedience of 
that voice in his being to which he had long been 
listening, and in which he recognised the authority 
of the Eternal Father. Absorbed in this purpose 
of self-consecration, he entered the river whose 
waters could have been to him no dead symbol. 
Significant of the all-cleansing influence of Truth, 
as the stream touched his person, it gave testimony, 
by the sensation, to the reality of the purpose 
which had moved him to the act, and there must 
have gone a thrill through his whole being. By 
thus putting into execution — by thus converting 
into an act, his deep and long-cherished conviction, 
4* 



42 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

that conviction naturally became, at that instant, 
new and actual. He had a new and deeper impres- 
sion than ever of the reality of what he was in- 
tending to do. He had a new experience of the 
vitality and power and peace of a true purpose. It 
was not possible, in the nature of things, that he 
should have this experience of the truth he had 
been cherishing, until his purpose took life in ac- 
tion. Then it justified itself. He had come forth 
from the secluded world of common duties and mere 
meditation, in which he had lived ; which, however 
earnest, was still only meditation. He had entered 
a new world, and taken his first step therein ; and 
instantly, having thus put his purpose to the proof 
without misgiving, it stood the proof, and proved 
its truth, by the conscious elevation and peace 
which instantly filled his bosom. Had it not been 
true, no such elevation and peace would have flowed 
from it. 

Such, I believe, must of necessity have been the 
case. It could not have been otherwise. His 
spiritual experience at his baptism illustrates the 
laws and the working of our spiritual nature. We 
may cherish true and great thoughts in the secresy 
of our being never so long and fervently. We may 
have, as we think, the greatest possible faith in 



HISTORY OP JESUS. 43 

them. And yet the moment we reduce them to 
action, which is the touchstone of their reality and 
power, they become new to us ; so much more vital 
than ever before, — such a new experience of then- 
force breaks on us, that it seems to us as if we had 
never known them before. They come upon us 
with all the force and clearness of revelations. 

Thus was it, I conceive, with Jesus at his bap- 
tism. He had such a new experience. And the 
account of what occurred on that occasion is a 
representation of that experience. When, with 
reverence, and yet as earnestly as I am able, I en- 
deavor to sympathise with him at that moment, and 
put myself in his place, I think I perceive clearly 
how it was that his baptism came to be described 
just as it is described — how it was that the heavens 
opened to him, and the spirit descended like a dove, 
and a divine voice was heard. 

The states and experiences of the mind can be 
represented in words only by means of images taken 
from external and material forms and operations. 
They can be described in words in no other way. 
The inner world can be shown in language only by 
forms and figures of speech afforded by the outer 
world. Let this be duly considered. And further- 
more, the deeper and the more stirring our internal 



44 HISTOEY OF JESUS. 

emotions, the bolder and more material will be the 
forms of speech in which we are necessitated to 
express them, if we try to express them at all. 
Ecstasy is represented as an exaltation to heaven. 
A sudden and strong impulse of mind is almost 
always spoken of as a voice speaking, a call. From 
the boldness of the forms of speech which are used, 
we may infer the depth of the emotion which in- 
spires them. 

Connecting these unquestionable facts with the 
inner experience of Jesus, when, by a most solemn 
act of self-consecration, he offered up his whole 
great being to the service of God and man, we shall 
perceive that such a vivid sense of Truth then 
flashed into his mind, that it seemed to him as if 
Heaven itself was unveiled. How is it possible 
the experience of that moment could have been 
expressed in any other way? The peace which 
then filled his bosom, and which only a sense of 
Truth could produce, passing all understanding, 
appeared to descend upon him, and rest on his heart 
with a dove-like gentleness. It was to him as the 
voice of Infinite Love calling to him, and addressing 
him as a beloved son. 

A dove is mentioned so explicitly in all the 
notices of the baptism of Jesus, that it may be — 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 45 

I mention it only as a supposition, I am by no 
means confident — that, as he came up out of the 
river, with his face upraised in prayer, every feature 
illuminated by the exaltation of his spirit, wearing 
an angelic expression of the peace, humility and 
greatness by which he was inspired, a dove, the 
recognised symbol of gentleness and peace, may 
have been hovering within the sphere of his rapt 
vision ; in this case, it might very naturally have 
been regarded and represented by him as a heaven- 
sent sign or omen of God, of that blessed Spirit 
which was descending and filling his soul. 

The Baptizer, with his ardent admiration of 
Jesus, sympathized with him, and shared in the 
transcendent exaltation of the moment. He was 
so far, at least, in sympathy with him, that he too 
had a vision of Heaven ; he too saw the dove-like 
spirit in the transfigured countenance of Jesus. It 
is not necessary to believe, from anything stated in 
the records, that John heard any voice. He saw 
enough of Jesus then, who must have looked like 
one all divine, to be fully satisfied of his extraordi- 
nary character. 

Let us once enter into the spiritual elevation of 
the occasion, and we shall perceive that the baptism 
of Jesus, as it is described in the records, is an 



46 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

outward and sensible representation of the interior 
experience of Jesus and of John also. This view 
of the event reveals the central and spiritual facts 
of the case, in harmony with the laws of our 
spiritual nature. It gives us, instead of outward 
and vanishing appearances and voices, of which, 
when we try distinctly to apprehend them, we can 
form no clear conception, the soul, the life, the fact 
of the occasion. The more fully we appreciate the 
position of Jesus at the time, and estimate the 
greatness of the step he was taking, the entireness 
of his self-devotion, the more clearly we shall see 
how firmly this mode of understanding the record 
of his baptism rests upon the facts and laws of our 
spiritual nature. It will seem improbable and 
forced, only when we lose sight of the glowing 
heart of Jesus at that decisive moment, that era of 
his life. 

Long and earnestly as he had revolved in his 
mind the divine work to which he devoted himself, 
it was not, as we have now seen, until he took the 
first step in his high career, converting his thought 
into act, that his conviction of the truth of his 
purpose became complete. Then his faith was per- 
fected. Then it coalesced and identified itself fully 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 47 

with liis inmost consciousness. He could delay no 
longer. He could no longer remain in retirement. 
His great thought had become life. It was born 
into the sphere of action. Before, he believed; 
now, when he had yielded to the high impulse, he 
knew — knew, by "the indubitable certainty of 
experience" bringing light and peace, that his posi- 
tion was a true one, in perfect harmony with the 
Eternal will. Now he knew himself, by evidence 
furnished by his own consciousness, to be the Son 
and Sent of God. Before, he had aspired, he had 
prayed, he had believed ; now, I repeat, he knew. 
He beheld himself with new eyes. He was the 
child of God, fully and irrevocably committed to 
the service of a child. 

Filled now as never before with a sense of his 
destiny, he could not rest. He rushed away from 
the familiar places and pursuits of his former life, 
and buried himself for a short time in the wilder- 
ness, there to collect his thoughts, to commune with 
himself, to meditate on the high mission, a sense of 
which had just been stamped deeply and inefface- 
ably into his very being. After the exaltation 
which had testified to the sincerity and pureness of 
his self-renunciation, there came, by a natural re- 
action, a season of depression. After such a vision 



48 HISTORY OF JESUS, 

of heaven as had opened upon him, the common 
light of day must have grown dim. When that 
unutterable peace, which had overflowed his heart, 
subsided, and that voice of God, testifying to his 
truth, ceased to sound, a celestial music, through 
his soul, there must have succeeded melancholy 
and unrest. " Immediately,' ' we are told, with 
striking truth of expression, "the spirit driveth 
him into the wilderness.' ' 

Thither he went to compose himself, to gather 
himself up once for all for the work which was now 
to be his life. It was the great crisis in the history 
of his soul ; and although he came out from it vic- 
toriously and with new power, yet it was a time of 
trial. Dark thoughts flitted through his mind. The 
self-knowledge that had opened upon him with all- 
sufficient clearness at his baptism, the conviction 
which was then made complete, that he had the 
Divine approbation, that his aims had the full sanc- 
tion of Truth, appealed to his pride and love of 
power, and endangered the self-renouncing temper 
of his mind. "If I am the Son of God," — this 
was the thought which recurred to him again and 
again, and brought with it the thought of using his 
power for questionable purposes. 

He spent some forty davs in the seclusion of the 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 49 

desert, subsisting upon such scanty food as the 
place afforded ; to all intents and purposes, fasting. 
Engrossed with his thoughts, he could have had but 
little inclination for food. He was in a measure 
insensible to his physical wants. His mind sus- 
tained him. But he could not always be sustained 
thus. 

After a while his hunger became importunate. 
He craved food. And the craving intruded on his 
thoughts. As he strolled about in the rocky desert, 
absorbed in thought, but occasionally distracted by 
a desire for food, his eye rested on some stones, 
which to his imagination, affected by his physical 
condition, very probably bore some slight resem- 
blance, in shape, size, or color, to loaves of bread. 
"If I am the Son of God," he thinks to himself, 
" possessed of the power of a Son of God, why may 
I not turn these stones into bread?" But he con- 
sidered also that a man does not live merely for the 
sake of bread, and that his power was not given 
him merely to obtain food for the body. Something 
else is necessary besides bread. A passage of 
Scripture occurred to him : " Man doth not live by 
bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from 
the mouth of God." He needs for his life the con- 
sciousness of being true to the word of God written 
5 



50 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

in the heart. This thought annihilated the tempta- 
tion to an unworthy use of his power. 

Then, or after a greater or less interval, he was 
walking again in the wilderness. Lost in thought, 
heedless of his steps, he struck his foot against a 
stone and stumbled. Recovering himself from 
what might have been a severe fall, he recalled, 
according to a characteristic habit of his mind, a 
passage from one of the Psalms — a passage which 
he might well consider as especially applicable to 
such an accident, and as directly addressed to him, 
sent into the world, as he knew himself to be, on a 
divine errand: "He shall give his angels charge 
over thee to keep thee in all thy ways, and in their 
hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou 
dash thy foot against a stone" If the arms of 
angels were extended to uphold him, and prevent 
him from stumbling and falling, why might he not, 
he thought, go to the city, and ascend one of the 
pinnacles of the Temple, and leap off, and enjoy 
the delight and pride of being thus attended and 
guarded? What wonder and admiration it would 
awaken ! But he saw and resisted the temptation 
to self-display. Another passage of Scripture oc- 
curred to him : " Thou shalt not try the Lord thy 
God," The protection of God is not to be expected 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 51 

for an act performed for a private and selfish pur- 
pose. It would be putting God to a trial, to do a 
thing merely to try the favor of Heaven. With 
this thought, again he conquered. 

He wandered on ; and after a while found him- 
self on a lofty eminence, commanding so extensive 
a view, that the world seemed to lie at his feet. 
His heart dilated with the sense of greatness which 
the prospect created. "I may make the world my 
own," he thought, "if I will only fall down and 
worship self, and seek only my own elevation." 
Once more he baffled the tempter. But this was 
the greatest temptation. He repelled the thought 
with a vehemence which reveals its power: "Away ! 
It is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, 
and Him only shalt thou serve." 

Hunger, the weakness of the body, and vanity, 
the besetting sin of the world, and ambition, the 
infirmity of the noblest, — he resisted and van- 
quished them all. After these trials and victories, 
came the inspiring sense of triumph. In the con- 
scious strength of his spirit, he was filled with a 
deep joy, which flowed into his heart as through 
the ministry of angels. There is no need to sup- 
pose that supernatural forms illuminated the gloom 
of the desert. No forms of visible brightness could 



52 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

shed such a glory around as the triumphant soul of 
Jesus. That it was, that peopled the wilderness 
with ministering influences, and his own thoughts 
were Heaven's fairest angels. 

Tried and victorious, he saw clearly now that 
nothing remained but to go fearlessly forth and 
deliver the gracious messages of Truth, come what 
might to himself. The sense of his great duty no 
longer depressed or tried him. It inspired his 
whole being. He left the wilderness and returned 
to the resorts of men, "in the power of the Spirit," 
full of spiritual power. 

I believe in the reality of these spiritual expe- 
riences of Jesus, because they entirely accord with 
nature, and with his peculiar position of character. 
They were too remarkable, they made too deep an 
impression on his own mind to be kept to himself. 
Accordingly, as I suppose, they were related by 
him to one or more of his beloved and devoted 
friends. And the manner in which they were told 
is in perfect keeping with the times and the coun- 
try. Bringing into view the modes of thought and 
speech universally current at the time, we cannot 
fail to see that these facts of his personal experience 
could have been described in no other way. 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 53 

In the account of his baptism, as it stands in the 
records, we have a mode of description not peculiar 
to the age or country, but necessitated by the very 
nature of the case. The facts of our consciousness 
can be represented in words only by figures sug- 
gested by material things. 

In the account of the temptation, the trying 
thoughts that arose are attributed to an Evil Spirit. 
The question of the origin of evil is a philosophical 
one, with which Jesus had no concern. It was not 
his sphere. Evil thoughts did come, and he re- 
pelled them. This was all that he designed to tell, 
all that it interested even him to know. As we do 
not yet know how evil comes, one philosophy will 
do as well as another. The fact that temptation 
does come, it chiefly concerns us to know. 

As it is not easy to determine the precise dura- 
tion of the subsequent career of Jesus, or to ascer- 
tain the exact order of time in which the events of 
his life occurred, neither is it at all necessary to 
the purpose of these pages. In the brief and inar- 
tificial histories of Jesus, there is a harmony in- 
finitely more interesting and vital, and far more 
easily traced than the order of time — a harmony 
with the highest beauty, with Truth and nature. 
5* 



54 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

This harmony has always been more or less dimly 
perceived ; and the perception of it it is, which has 
caused the life of Jesus to be recognised as a true 
and heaven-sent beam from the upper glory, not- 
withstanding the bewildering cross-lights of a thou- 
sand conflicting theologies. I write to make this 
harmony, if I may, still more manifest. Once 
distinctly seen, it supersedes all "Evidences," com- 
monly so called. It is only another name for the 
demonstration of the truth of the life of Jesus. It 
offers every man a firm foundation for an intelligent 
personal belief in the historical truth of the Story 
of that life. He who rests on it will regard ques- 
tions of time and place as all but needless and im- 
pertinent. 



CHAPTER III. 

MANNER OF TEACHINGS — SUBJECTS OF TEACHING — 
FIRST APPEARANCE IN PUBLIC — THE SENSATION 
PRODUCED — CAPERNAUM — NAZARETH. 

Such a huge and complicated structure of insti- 
tutions has sprung out of the words and life of 
Jesus, that it is everywhere taken for granted, that 
it was the express end for which he labored, to 
build up what commonly goes by the name of 
Christianity, or the Church; in other words, that 
he had a definite plan to carry out. He is de- 
scribed as the Founder of Christendom. I do not 
question the fact, that the nations which now make 
their boast in his name owe much to him; that 
their social institutions have been so far humanized 
as they are, in great part through him. But I do 
not find that he had any precise scheme. Beyond 

(55) 



56 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

the great purpose of deepening and diffusing the 
influence of Truth, and of bringing men into a 
natural rather than any formal association, he had 
no idea, I conceive, of establishing a peculiar 
School or visible Church. 

He came among men simply as a fellow-worker 
with Truth, Nature, and the Eternal Providence. 
The true word that he read in his heart, he spoke 
without favor or fear. The good which came to 
hand to be done, he did. He lived to be true, on 
all occasions, in all circumstances, to the law of his 
great being. This was his ruling spirit and his 
success. And to undertake to define the end of his 
existence seems to me as belittling and irreverent, 
as to presume to designate the final cause of the 
existence of the sun, or of nature itself. The 
genius of his life is one with the genius of nature. 

He has been represented, and is now everywhere 
conceived of, if not as antagonist to nature, yet as 
distinct and apart from it. Whereas the special 
charm of his history lies in this : that it is the his- 
tory of a human being, who came forth, and grew, 
and bloomed, and bore imperishable fruit on earth, 
making the very cross put forth boughs like a plant. 
He lived like a tree or a flower, and shone like the 
sun and the stars; and his life, exhaling its fra- 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 57 

grance through the world, is refreshing, like the 
morning breeze or the air of mountains. He was 
one with God and nature, and had no purpose apart 
from and less than theirs. The benignant Divinity 
which breathes upon us through all the beauty and 
goodness of things, had free course and was glorified 
in and through him. He prescribed no forms, 
founded no institutions. He committed not a word 
to writing. He laid down no artificial or arbitrary 
rules. He was informal, no system-builder. It is 
true, he had much to say about c the kingdom of 
Heaven ;' and, according to the popular idea, the 
kingdom of Heaven was a grand, heaven-constructed 
polity, which was then shortly to be established. 
But if we examine with care the representations 
which he made of it, and separate the ideas of it 
which were peculiar to him, from the popular 
phraseology in which he expressed himself, we may 
see very clearly that, by the kingdom of Heaven 
he understood simply the power of Truth. He 
lived and taught just as nature lives and teaches ; 
except that his was an articulate voice, and his the 
life of a god-like human soul. He was, throughout, 
in closest fellowship with universal nature. He 
wore the dress of his country, and used its lan- 
guage. But beyond this we lose almost every trace 



58 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

of his Jewish blood. He is a simple dweller on 
this earth, a child of Nature loving his mother, a 
Son of God, walking hand in hand with God ever- 
more. 

As every stage in the growth of a product of 
nature has a perfection of its own, apart from any- 
ultimate end which it may be supposed to serve ; 
the blossom being perfect as a blossom, and the 
fruit as fruit; so the separate incidents of the life 
of Jesus have each a completeness in itself. On 
this account, it is a matter of small interest what 
was the exact order in which the events of his his- 
tory occurred. They have an essential beauty 
quite independent of this circumstance. And, while 
I observe a general order, I shall not attempt to fix 
the precise place of every incident that I may 
mention. 

When he emerged from the temporary seclusion 
of the desert, he immediately began to teach. Let 
us observe him now as a teacher, and consider how 
he taught and what he taught. 

The peculiarity of his method as a teacher con- 
sists in an entire disregard of all method. He 
adopted no professional dress ; but appeared in the 
common garb of the time and the country. He 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 59 

used no peculiar phraseology ; but expressed him- 
self in the common speech of the people, which 
appears to have answered all his purposes. Al- 
though, for obvious reasons, he began as a teacher 
in the synagogues or churches, yet he was not par- 
ticular as to the places in which he spoke ; but in 
the open air, on a mountain or at the sea-side,, by 
a well, with only a woman for his auditor, under 
the roof of a tax-gatherer, or at the crowded en- 
tertainments of the opulent, at night, or at mid-day 
on the public road ; wherever he chanced to be, he 
gave utterance to his great sayings, casting them 
abroad with the carelessness of nature ; using no 
means to protect or perpetuate them. This god-like 
indifference to effect is well expressed in a picture, 
by a German artist, entitled, ' The Tares and the 
Wheat/ in which Jesus is represented as passing 
over the field, throwing the seed to the right hand 
and to the left-, heedless of the birds which almost 
cover the ground, and of the Evil One, who, with 
an air of malicious triumph, is following closely 
behind him, scattering tares. The words of Jesus 
were unstudied, spontaneous. He spoke, not for 
effect, but from an overflowing heart. His speech 
gushed from him. He took no thought what he 
should say and teach; it was given him at the 



60 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

moment to utter, in simple, direct language, the 
very thought that the occasion suggested and re- 
quired. His teaching was thus not only thoroughly 
inartificial, it was a voice — it was the voice of 
Nature, in full harmony with that music of hers 
which is audible only to the spiritual sense. To 
describe his teaching by any scholastic standard is 
out of place. It is out of the reach of all such 
measures, like the airy sounds of nature, the rip- 
pling of brooks, or the roar of torrents, or the 
songs of birds. 

When we look more nearly at his manner of 
teaching, we find it steeped in nature. He repre- 
sents the greatest truths by the simplest pictures 
of nature and of life. He points to natural objects, 
and the lilies wave in acknowledgement of the 
grace, and the fowls of heaven sing the care of 
God. The most ordinary implements in the use of 
man were made significant of his meaning. Bread 
became a symbol of himself; and by the homely 
process of making bread, he illustrated the working 
of Truth. He was throughout as a teacher in most 
intimate communication with all things around him. 
He did not stand alone and apart, a solitary voice 
in a wilderness, but his voice reverberated with 
thousandfold echoes and harmonies from all nature. 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 61 

It was "made of all sweet accord.' ' The parables 
which he used for the conveyance of Truth are 
remarkable, not merely because they were adopted 
to stimulate the apprehensions of the dull of under- 
standing, but also because there is a real corre- 
spondence between the things they describe and the 
truths he sought to signify. Not yet, by any 
means, is the depth of their resemblance fa- 
thomed. 

When, from his manner of teaching, we turn to 
the subjects of his teaching, we find the same iden- 
tity with Nature. He taught as Nature teaches, 
and what Nature teaches ; no more — I dare not say 
no less, for Nature is inexhaustible, and could not 
have been exhausted. Everything that he said was 
the annunciation of a fact in the eternal truth of 
things. He expressed no private opinions. His 
teachings were no inventions of his. Hence he 
declared that the words he spake were not his ; that 
of himself he was nothing ; that the same Power, 
which sent him into being, was speaking and work- 
ing through him ; that whosoever saw and heard 
him, saw and heard God. He could not, in simple 
truth, assert anything else. In this conviction he 
was above all hesitation, all fear. He spoke with 
a godlike self-possession. His speech was with 
6 



62 HI&TORY OF JE&US. 

authority. He had that air of command which 
belongs only to complete conviction, and which is 
its own sufficient voucher; and all evidence, even 
of miracles, was superfluous. Whatever I am satis- 
fied he said, I believe ; because he said it, and, in 
saying it, spoke just as God speaks in nature. 

He was the discoverer of a new world; not 
that world which is imagined to lie on the other 
side of the grave, but a world here within us, in 
which we are dwelling, and which dwells in us, and 
of which the visible world is a picture. In calling 
him the Discoverer of the unseen world, I do not 
mean that he was the first to apprehend its exist- 
ence. From the beginning, all men have been more 
or less fully aware of their connection with invisible 
things; and human wisdom, in all ages of the 
world, has discerned the unseen realms of being, 
of which man is a born denizen. But Jesus was 
the first to enter the invisible world, and take pos- 
session of it as his habitation and homestead. He 
walked by its light, which for him was never 
clouded, and which never set ; he drew from it his 
life, and was in harmony with its laws, uninfluenced 
by the artificial standards and visible distinctions 
of human law, custom, and opinion. He uniformly 
treated men not as they were estimated by their 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 63 

fellow-men, but as inhabitants of a larger sphere, 
invested with a right in its illimitable resources, 
amenable to its laws, and partakers of its greatness ; 
brothers all, bound together by ties of sympathy 
and love that never could be destroyed. The out- 
ward person, whether clad in the robes of rank and 
office, or squalid with misery, he regarded not. 
The inner nature had his full sympathy and reve- 
rence. He saw that men did not know themselves, 
to what loss they were liable, to what elevation they 
might rise. He saw that they did not know and 
love one another as they might and as they should ; 
and his whole great soul yearned towards them with 
that unutterable interest which could be felt only 
by one who had the clearest perception of their 
interior being. We speak sometimes of his con- 
descension ; and, measured by ordinary standards, 
his condescension was great. But when we con- 
sider the way in which he uniformly saw things, 
everything that can be termed condescension van- 
ishes. When the outcast approached him, bathed 
in penitent tears, his heart bowed before her with 
more than a brother's tenderness, with the fatherly 
love of the good God himself: "My daughter/' he 
exclaimed, "thy sins are forgiven thee; go in 
peace." In little children he beheld the blest 



64 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

inhabitants of a celestial sphere. It was of this 
spiritual world which he discerned all around and 
within him, and of which the visible and common 
world was throughout, to his illuminated vision, a 
remembrancer and sign, that he spake under the 
figure, familiar to his countrymen, of " a kingdom 
of heaven." He likened its influence to a sower 
casting seed into the ground, to the process of vege- 
tation, to the operation of leaven. He set forth its 
laws in the parable of the talents. He described 
its extension as invisible, and not as a matter of 
observation. 

By employing modes of illustration, furnished 
by familiar objects and incidents, and which a child 
might understand, he virtually appealed to the 
native sense of Truth in the human breast; and 
his teachings simply unfold and repeat the dictates 
of reason and conscience. He declared again and 
again, that what he taught approved itself to the 
heart of every true man, of every one living in 
conformity to the eternal will. 

I say then, in answer to the inquiry, What did 
he teach ? he taught the relations and laws of our 
moral and higher nature. He taught men what 
they are and what they should do, what they should 
hope and what fear, as beings formed for spiritual 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 65 

growth ; and he referred them to the voice of Duty 
in their own bosoms, as the law of Truth and God. 
As spiritual beings, their life, he declared, consisted 
now and for ever, in loving the Right, which is the 
love of God, with all one's strength, and one's fel- 
low-man as one's-self. " This do, and thou wilt 
live" — 'live a life which is not in the body nor 
affected by the changes of the body ; a life which 
thou wilt know to be imperishable, not only when 
thou comest to die, but immediately, in the con- 
sciousness of a power and peace such as nothing 
else gives or can take away.' Jesus revealed our 
weal or our woe, heaven and hell, here, in ourselves, 
in the illimitable capacity of enjoying and suffering 
inherent in our being. The eternal world is here 
with its joys and its woes ; Jesus never formally 
asserted, he uniformly took it for granted, that man 
is of an immaterial, indestructible nature. He read 
man's immortality in man. 

And over this unseen sphere, in which man and 
all things are contained, Infinite Goodness presides, 
according to Jesus. The all-governing Power was 
signified to him most clearly through the tenderest 
of human relations, the parental relation. Not 
that he was the first to call God, Father. The 
word had come from myriads of lips in all parts of 
6* 



G6 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

the earth, before he uttered it. But I think he 
had a quite new, original sense of the Divine Love. 
There is nothing in him, in my view, more striking, 
nothing that more emphatically attests his abundant 
inspiration, than his commanding conviction of the 
love of the Invisible. Let any one, to the best of 
his endeavor, put himself in the place of Jesus, 
and he may see the truth of what I say. 

Here was a young man, born in obscurity, 
brought up in the humblest circumstances, cherish- 
ing thoughts in which no one shared, and prompted 
to a course of life, which, however it attracted pub- 
lic attention, stirred up the strongest opposition. 
All that the world accounted wise and honorable 
and great, frowned upon him. His own family 
were alarmed, and suspected that he was insane ; 
and he was told again and again that an evil spirit 
had got possession of him. In this situation, with 
the world rising against him, and pointing to the 
horrid Cross as his merited doom, must not his 
outlook have been dark indeed ? The mighty con- 
tradiction, — why did it not overwhelm him utterly ? 
What kept his mind sane, and his heart from 
being broken? How clear and penetrating must 
have been the insight that enabled him to descry, 
through the thick darkness of his position, the 



HISTOEY OF JESUS. 67 

Sovereign Good that was at work in and through 
all ! He beheld no all-devouring Fate, no uncon- 
scious Necessity, but a Love which wore the aspect 
of a parental tenderness. Unbewildered by what 
would otherwise have been the crushing mystery of 
existence, in filial confidence, he called the Unseen, 
Father. Solitary as was his lot, he leaned with the 
trust of a child on the bosom of Infinite Goodness. 
Thousands of men, whose condition contained no 
such contradictions as his, have been so overpowered 
by the mystery of Life and Suffering, that they 
have been driven to the desperation of utter denial. 
But to him the Love of the Invisible was as mani- 
fest and as near as if he had been in heaven, and 
all the sorrows and distractions of life had sunk 
down into an unfathomable abyss beneath him. 
The name of Father, in application to God, coming 
from the lips of Jesus, is not the mere echo of a 
word caught from others. It is an original testi- 
mony to the Parental Spirit which gathers the 
Universe under its wings. It is the voice, not to 
be mistaken, of a Son pronouncing the name of 
Father, modulated by that filial faith which only a 
clear vision of the Father could create. And thus 
he taught, with an original authority, that man is 
here, not as an accident, not as the growth of a 



68 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

blind Necessity, but as a child dwelling forever 
under the paternal roof. 

We have no particular account of the circum- 
stances which first drew public attention to Jesus. 
We merely learn that, when he reappeared from 
the desert, where he had been for a while secluded, 
he began to teach in the synagogues or churches of 
the land, calling upon the people to reform, for that 
the kingdom of Heaven was at hand. By which I 
understand both him and John to have meant simply 
what has proved to be an historical fact. A great 
crisis was approaching, the signs of which were as 
legible to Jesus as the indications of the changing 
weather, (so we may gather from what he said once 
to certain of the sect of the Pharisees,) and which 
would demonstrate the Providence of Heaven, and 
tend, by the overthrow of the Jewish State, and by 
sweeping away the desperate bigotry of that people, 
which was the great immediate obstacle to the 
power of Truth, to establish that power. Upon 
making this annunciation, Jesus was instantly sur- 
rounded by immense multitudes, and the greatest 
sensation was produced. People came from all 
parts of the country to see and hear him. Crowds 
were collected around the doors of the houses which 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 69 

he was seen to enter. Such numbers were con- 
stantly coming and going, that he and his friends 
had no time for their meals. For some time, at 
first, he kept for the most part on the borders of 
the Sea of Galilee, evidently because opportunity 
was thus afforded him, by crossing the lake, to with- 
draw from public notice, and from the excitement 
caused by his presence, when it became too great. 
Occasionally, he retired from the public eye altoge- 
ther, to allow the excitement to subside, and to 
avoid any outbreak of popular feeling, which looked 
for a political reformer and military leader. His 
mother and kindred were alarmed on his account, 
and feared that he was beside himself, and went in 
search of him. 

From the desert, as we are told, he went into 
Galilee, to Capernaum, situated on the northern 
sliore of the Sea of Galilee ; thus avoiding the juris- 
diction of the prince by whom he had heard that 
John had been seized and thrown into prison. I 
gather from the records, that he made his first ap- 
pearance as a teacher in the synagogues, the Jewish 
places of worship, and on the Sabbaths, the con- 
secrated days of religious service. Upon visiting 
the synagogue at Capernaum, he was preceded by 
the rumor of his wondrous gifts, He had previously 



70 history or JESUS. 

given, I suppose, such evidence of his extraordi- 
nary power, that expectation was greatly excited ; 
and although no public expression was given to it, 
yet the idea that here was the promised Deliverer, 
was springing up in many minds, and whispered 
from one to another. He spoke in the synagogue, 
as the custom of the place permitted. His hearers 
were deeply impressed with the air of authority 
with which he spoke, so different from the formal 
manner of their established teachers, who lacked 
that commanding strength of conviction, that sense 
of reality, which inspired him. It can readily be 
imagined that the difference must have been very 
striking. The people had heard nothing like it 
before. Into the congregation there had wandered 
with the crowd, a man who was insane, and who, 
of course, according to the universal idea of the 
time, was considered, and considered himself, under 
the power of an evil spirit. Excited by the words 
and the commanding bearing of Jesus, and by the 
excited looks of all around him, this individual lost 
what little self-possession he had retained, and un- 
able to restrain himself, cried out from the midst 
of the assembly, and speaking in the character of 
the spirit, by which he might well suppose himself 
prompted, since he could not command himself, he 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 71 

exclaimed, "Ah! why do you trouble us, Jesus of 
Nazareth ? Have you come to destroy us ? I know 
you, who you are, the consecrated one of God l" 
The man spoke right out what many were probably 
thinking in their hearts, but did not venture to say. 
Into what a commotion must the assembly, already 
greatly excited, have been thrown by this startling 
outcry ! Jesus alone, undisturbed and self-pos- 
sessed, turned directly, and commanded the evil 
spirit to be silent and quit the man; who thus 
personally addressed and with an air of unearthly 
authority, fell into convulsions, uttering an agoniz- 
ing cry, and then became perfectly subdued and 
calm. No doubt, from that moment he regained 
his self-possession completely, and the idea that a 
malignant spirit was in him was expelled from his 
mind for ever. All present were overwhelmed with 
amazement at this manifestation of power. They 
knew not what to make of it. 

Jesus quitted the synagogue and w T ent to the 
house of a friend, whose mother-in-law was lying 
ill of a fever ; w T hich, when he learned, he went to 
her and took her by the hand, and immediately she 
became so much better, that she left her bed, and 
set about discharging the offices of hospitality. 
The rumor of this case, following upon what had 



72 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

occurred in the synagogue, created the greatest 
stir ; and at sunset, when the Sabbath was at an 
end, the whole city seemed collected round the door 
of the house where Jesus was. The sick and the 
insane were brought to be healed, and many were 
healed. There was little sleep, I imagine, in Ca- 
pernaum that night. Early the next morning, 
before the break of day, Jesus left the place, seek- 
ing the solitude of the country. Certain friends 
of his, (whom he had previously induced to leave 
their usual pursuits and accompany him on his ex- 
cursions over the country,) went in search of him. 
When they found him, they told him that every 
body was inquiring for him. He did not then re- 
turn, however, to Capernaum, but proceeded to visit 
other places, teaching in the synagogues. 

Travelling through the country, he visited Naza- 
reth, the town where he had been brought up. He 
was coolly received. The people had known him 
and his family from his infancy, and could not think 
of the carpenter Joseph's son as anything remark- 
able. As reports were brought to Nazareth of his 
wonderful works and sayings, the people of that 
place sneered, I suppose, at the credulity of the 
world. Consequently, when he appeared in the 
town, " he could do no mighty work there, save that 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 73 

he laid his hands upon a few sick persons and healed 
them." Unquestionable as was his power, it was 
nevertheless, as we see, conditional; it appears to 
have depended, in some degree, upon the sympathy, 
created by confidence in him, between him and the 
subjects of his power. 

On the Sabbath, he went into the synagogue, and 
as he was wont, he stood up. By this act, accord- 
ing to the order of the service, he was understood 
to offer to read ; and there was handed to him the 
volume of the prophet Isaiah. He turned to that 
beautiful passage : " The Spirit of the Lord is upon 
me, because he hath anointed me to proclaim good 
news to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the 
broken-hearted, to proclaim deliverance to the cap- 
tives, and the recovery of sight to the blind, to set 
at liberty them that are bruised, to proclaim the 
acceptable year of the Lord." Having read these 
words, in which the ancient prophet, under an allu- 
sion to the year of jubilee prescribed by the Jewish 
Law, when slaves were set free, and debts remitted, 
and property restored, described the blessings of 
the Truth which he himself taught, Jesus gave the 
volume back to the attendant, and sate down ; in- 
timating, by thus taking his seat, (Jewish teachers 
taught seated,) that he was about to speak. All 
7 



74 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

eyes were fastened on him, as he proceeded to de- 
clare that the words he had just read were being 
fulfilled at that moment. His hearers were struck 
with the power with which he spoke, especially 
when they reverted to his humble connections. He 
told them they were ready, of course, to sneer at 
him, and say, " Physician, heal thyself. You have 
healed others elsewhere, — at Capernaum, — come, 
let us see you do some act of healing here, in your 
own town." But he did not expect that his own 
townsmen would give him any credit. He knew, 
he said, that no prophet was honored among his 
own people. They might flatter themselves they 
had a special claim upon him. But he reminded 
them of certain facts in the Scriptures which they 
venerated so profoundly; how, for instance, there 
were many widows in Israel in the time of one of 
the old prophets, when a great famine raged, and 
yet the prophet relieved none of them, but was sent 
to a widow who was a Gentile ; and again, although 
there were many in Israel afflicted with leprosy, in 
the time of another prophet, yet these were left to 
suffer, while a Syrian was healed. This language 
instantly stirred up a storm of wrath, and the syna- 
gogue was in an uproar. The Scriptures, — what 
a profanation was it to quote them thus, to prove 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 75 

that dogs of Gentiles, whom the Jews despised as 
we despise Africans, had been preferred before the 
children of Abraham ! The idea was not to be 
tolerated. The meeting was broken up in disorder, 
and Jesus compelled to quit the spot. The mob 
grew bloodthirsty ; and had he not slipped silently 
away, they would have laid violent hands on him. 
There was a talk of throwing him off headlong from 
the brow of the hill on which the city stood ; but 
he left the place without receiving any injury. 

.Wherever he made his appearance, a crowd in- 
stantly gathered around him, and the excitement 
grew so, that he had to keep as much as possible 
secluded. Once, as he was travelling with only a 
few friends, at a distance, as I suppose, from any 
city, — as persons suffering with leprosy were com- 
pelled to keep apart from human habitations on 
account of the contagious nature of that dire dis- 
ease, — an individual suffering that terrible affliction 
recognized him, and came and knelt before him, 
declaring that if he only would, he could cleanse 
him of the leprosy. With a brief and simple ex- 
pression of his good-will, uttered in a tone of regal 
authority, he laid his hand upon the leper; and 
instantly, at that electric touch, the disease vaa- 
ished ! Popular feeling, however, was so high, that 



76 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

Jesus charged the man not to tell how he had been 
cured, but to go and have his cure certified in due 
form by the priest. But the man could not keep 
it secret. It got abroad, and the whole country 
was in a flame of wonder and expectation ; " inso- 
much that/' as one of the records states, "Jesus 
could no more enter any city, but was without, in 
desert places, and they flocked to him from all 
quarters.' ' 



CHAPTER IV. 

SERMON ON THE MOUNT — PARABLES — PROPHETIC 
POWER — INCIDENTS — SCRIBES AND PHARISEES. 

I learn, as I have already said, from the re- 
cords, that when Jesus first appeared in public, he 
taught almost exclusively in the synagogues. It 
was natural that he should go where the people 
were already collected, when he wished to address 
them. But very soon the attention of .the public 
was attracted to him so powerfully, that a crowd 
gathered around him wherever and whenever he 
made his appearance. He did not then wait for the 
Sabbath and the synagogue ; but, seeing the multi- 
tudes, he led them to a mountain, or to the shores 
of the lake, where the locality was convenient for 
speaking and hearing. It was on an occasion of 

this sort that he delivered the Sermon on the 
7 * (77) 



78 HISTOKY OF JESUS. 

Mount ; a discourse which, I think it probable, was 
not all given at once. It may be that, as we have 
it, it is in great part a compilation of his pre- 
cepts, uttered and repeated on various occasions 
and in different places. 

I shall not attempt to comment on it with any 
particularity. It has written itself on the hearts 
of men. Wise and simple may find in it an expo- 
sition of the whole duty of man, given with the 
authority of a voice out of heaven. To the truth 
and thoroughness of its precepts, the universal 
conscience of mankind will for ever bear witness. 
Let every man ponder it for himself. It is intelli- 
gible to the humblest mind. It cannot be exhausted 
by the highest. It illuminates every sphere of 
human life, announcing the laws of personal and 
social well-being. 

How true and original is its beginning, an answer 
to one of the great questions which the wisest of 
the race had been endeavoring to solve, and of 
which philosophy had given such various solutions : 
What is happiness ? an answer, given in the form 
of benedictions, flowing from the heart of the 
speaker, — benedictions upon the lowly-minded, the 
sorrowing, the pure-hearted, the lovers of peace, 
the brave sufferers for Eight. In these immortal 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 79 

beatitudes, I hear Jesus exulting in the vision of 
the beneficent laws of our inner nature. These 
brief utterances — how widely do they differ from 
the ordinary apprehensions of mankind, who, in all 
ages, to this day, search for happiness without, and 
pray for it to come from abroad. Jesus points with 
the authority of Truth, into the pure, humble and 
breaking heart, and discloses the perennial fountains 
there. 

But it is in contrast with the flaming passions 
of his immediate hearers, that the first words of 
the Sermon on the Mount are most striking. Em- 
ploying the most familiar language, and thus taking 
it for granted that the people around him, coarse- 
minded as they were, understood what he said, he 
told them that they only were happy who were 
cherishing affections directly the opposite of those 
which his auditors were then indulging. They 
were ready to rush to arms, to shed blood, to gratify 
sensual passions, to persecute the lovers of right- 
eousness. Jesus assured them that not by such 
means, but directly the reverse, would they be 
blest. 

In another part of this great Sermon, — great in 
itself, and great as coming from the lips of a young 
Jewish peasant, — resort to violence, even in the 



80 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

case of gross personal injury, is forbidden in direct 
and unqualified terms ; and by the example of Him 
■who causes the sun to rise and the rain to fall on 
the just and on the unjust, men are commanded to 
do good to those who do evil to them. Never be- 
fore was such a precept urged with such emphasis. 
It distinguishes the morality of Jesus. But not- 
withstanding the authority which has been accorded 
to him for centuries by great nations, the obligation 
of this law of his has been almost everywhere re- 
pudiated as impracticable, and the precept itself 
accounted an exaggeration. Yet the early history 
of the only religious denomination — the followers 
of George Fox — who have accepted this law in its 
completeness, justifies the power and soundness of 
the principle. 

Without pausing to dwell on the moral truth of 
the Sermon on the Mount, I remark that it is not 
more striking in itself than as it illustrates the being 
of Jesus, and is illustrated by it. What we have here 
in words existed in him as life. The qualities which 
he pronounces happy are far more vividly expressed 
in his character. No language, though it fell from 
an angel's lips, could show us the truth of returning 
good for evil as it is shown in his life, and in his 
death, as the crown and seal of his life. 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 81 

Upon another occasion, when the people crowded 
around him, he entered a fishing vessel belonging 
to a friend, and directing it to be cast off a short 
distance from the shore, which was crowded with 
people, he began to teach, relating various parables 
or allegories, the aim of which was to direct atten- 
tion to the moral features of that revolution which 
was expected, and which to the discerning spirit 
was already begun. 

In the parable of the Sower casting seed into the 
ground, some of which falls among rocks, some into 
a thin soil, while some the birds consume, and some 
again is received into good ground, and springs up, 
and yields abundantly, Jesus intimates that the 
power of Truth is dependent on the state of mind 
with which it is received. Here was a considera- 
tion which it was of the first importance should be 
impressed on his countrymen. It became them to 
look well to themselves, or they would miss the 
good they were so fondly anticipating. Accord- 
ingly, Jesus concluded the parable with a warning 
to his hearers to use their ears. 

Then he told another story, pregnant with mean- 
ing, of a man who sowed good seed in his field, but 
at night his enemy came and scattered the seeds 
of weeds among the wheat, which came up with the 



82 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

wheat, and which when the servants saw, they were 
for pulling them up. But their master forbade the 
field to be touched until the harvest. Then the 
weeds were separated from the wheat and burned, 
and the good grain was gathered into the garner. 
In the small circle of his chosen friends, Jesus 
afterwards interpreted this as well as the former 
allegory ; and, according to his interpretation, it is 
a description of the moral government of the world, 
and a prediction of the coming order of things, 
when good would be separated from evil. This, he 
taught in this parable, was to be one of the pro- 
minent characteristics of the expected kingdom; 
one of the chief things which He, whom the nation 
was waiting for, would accomplish : the distinguish- 
ing of the true from the false, the separation of 
good from evil. 

This parable, as a prophecy, suggests certain 
interesting considerations in regard to the pro- 
phetic insight of Jesus. 

To the seeing eye, both the past and the future 
are visible in the present. In what is, as physical 
science testifies, may be discerned what has been 
thousands of years ago, and what is to be thousands 
of years to come. At the period at which Jesus 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 83 

appeared, the whole Jewish nation was prophetic. 
It had faith in the great change that was at hand. 
It is true, this belief rested mainly on the supposed 
authority of ancient Prophecy. But, as I have 
already remarked, since, as we now know from his- 
tory, the entire overthrow of the Jewish State was 
at hand, so important an event must, from the 
nature of the case, have been preceded by symp- 
toms, i signs of the times,' more or less striking; 
which many must have felt, even though they were 
unable to define them. John the Baptist, with his 
fervid sense of the corruption and decay of Reli- 
gion, had, I suppose, a fore-feeling of the approach- 
ing change, of 'the coming wrath;' and this was 
one of the things which prompted him to utter his 
cry of warning. To John, the appearance also of 
such a person as Jesus, armed with the might of 
Truth, must have been another stirring sign. In 
the people, he saw the seeds of decay germinating ; 
in Jesus he beheld the power of the Truth which 
was to renovate and restore. But to Jesus himself, 
with his clear, spiritual vision, how much must have 
been visible which was visible to no one else ! He 
foresaw not only the coming ruin of the nation, but 
also the grand opportunity which w r ould then be 
given, by the breaking in pieces of Jewish pride. 



84 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

for the diffusion of Truth. Standing where he 
stood, he could not but regard the bigotry of his 
countrymen, which excommunicated all other na- 
tions, and which was the immediate and most pow- 
erful obstacle to his own purpose, as the one great 
obstruction to the establishment of the empire of 
Truth and Righteousness, the coming of the divine 
kingdom, the reign of God, which the Jews expected 
in the form of a magnificent dominion, with a 
heaven-anointed prince at its head. 

Tilled with wonder at the overflowing measure 
of Truth which he possessed, and at the far-reach- 
ing vision with which he saw into futurity, I cer- 
tainly have no disposition to limit the range of his 
prophetic power. But since he himself is recorded 
to have declared that his knowledge was limited, 
that he knew not — that God alone knew, the exact 
time when the nation would be overthrown, I think 
there is reason to suppose that he expected that the 
downfall of Jerusalem would be followed by a more 
speedy and complete establishment of the dominion 
of Truth, than has been witnessed. His idea, I 
believe, of "the coming of the Son of man," was 
purely spiritual, not personal, but the living force 
of Truth, entering with new energy into the world. 
He saw that it was impeded ; it could not come, so 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 85 

long as the Jewish order of things remained stand- 
ing. That once swept away, then Righteousness 
would triumph and prevail without obstruction. 
Beyond that, the vision faded away into indistinct- 
ness, as it must have done to all but the Infinite 
Eye. He did not see — it was needless that he 
should — how, when Jewish opposition would have 
been broken down, the Truth which went forth from 
him would have yet other obstructions to overcome, 
and would be checked and crippled by Paganism 
and false philosophy, and the interests and cunning 
passions of men. But I wonder, not that he did 
not see these things, which were then hidden in a 
remote futurity, but that he saw so far as he did, 
and foretold what the world has since witnessed, 
and is even now witnessing : the influence of those 
principles, which came into the world with a new 
force in him, and, going forth from him, survived 
the ruin of his country, and went abroad over the 
earth ; tending mightily, according to the prediction 
of the parable, to separate the true from the false, 
the good from the bad. Yes, the Truth, made vital 
by him, has come, and is winnowing the world, 
separating the chaff from the wheat. Mighty 
angels are abroad in all those agencies which the 
progress of things has brought into operation; 
8 



86 HISTORY OF JESTTS, 

separating the tares from the wheat, burning np 
the tares and gathering in the wheat. Still, I do 
not suppose that Jesus foresaw — the prospect was 
too far distant for any but the All-seeing — how 
mournfully Truth would be neutralized and per- 
verted for ages after the destruction of the Jewish 
nation had seemed to make a smooth way for its 
coming in power and great glory. Surely it would 
have fallen with a breaking weight, even on his 
heart, mighty in faith, had he foreseen that, cen- 
turies after him, the record of his own words would 
be appealed to for permission to wage inhuman war, 
and to treat man as a thing to be bought and sold 
like a beast of burthen. Penetrating as was his 
spiritual sight, he yet knew not, as he himself said, 
when his predictions would be fulfilled, save that it 
would be in that generation ; neither, as I conceive, 
did he know how long the harvest would be in 
gathering. That was known only to Him, before 
whom a thousand years are but as one day. With 
this understanding of the prophetic power of Jesus, 
I resume the Story. 

He related many other parables to the people, 
the aim of which was to call attention to the invi- 
sible, moral features of the new order of things, the 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 87 

next 'age.' Afterwards, when he was alone with 
his chosen friends, they asked him why he spoke in 
parables. 'You are able/ he told them in reply, 
Ho understand the hidden truths concerning the 
expected kingdom, but the people at large are un- 
able. Their modes of thinking are so gross, so 
depraved by pictures of an external greatness and 
splendor, that they would not apprehend my mean- 
ing, were I to speak more plainly. I employ para- 
bles to stimulate their curiosity, and set them 
thinking out the Truth for themselves*' 

We shall have no adequate idea of those startling 
and instantaneous cures wrought by Jesus, unless 
we keep fully in view the tremendous excitement 
by which the whole country, far and near, was 
stirred. The crowd at times was so great, that 
people were in danger of being crushed to death 
or trampled under foot. The land was electrified. 
Faith and hope and wonder, to which his words and 
acts, and looks even, as I cannot but believe, ap- 
pealed with a mighty power, ran like wildfire 
through the country, — raged like an epidemic. 
The strongest emotions of our nature flamed forth 
as at the visible presence of a god. Persons suf- 
fering from any physical infirmity were of course 



88 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

particularly sensitive — liable to be greatly affected 
by sympathy with the popular feeling which surged 
around them, fusing all hearts. Every man knows 
how powerfully mental excitement acts upon the 
body. 

On one occasion there came persons to Jesus, 
requesting his help in behalf of a youth belonging 
to the family of a Roman officer, whose liberality 
and respect for their religion had won the regard 
of the people among whom he was stationed. The 
circumstances of the case justify us in supposing 
that he was a man who had been particularly im- 
pressed with the excellence of the religion of this 
conquered people. Certain it is, that he had seen 
and heard enough of the wonderful man who en- 
grossed public attention, to have conceived entire 
confidence in him. With the request thus preferred, 
Jesus signified his readiness to comply, and turned 
to go to the centurion's house. On the way, the 
centurion himself, who, perhaps, in his humility, 
had not dreamed of being so honored, met him and 
said to him : * Sir, I am not worthy that you should 
visit my house, neither is it necessary. Just speak 
the word, and the boy will be well. Even I, who 
am at the beck and bidding of others in higher 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 89 

authority than I, even I can command those who 
are under me, and I am obeyed. Do you then 
order it to be so, and the child is well.' Such an 
address, such confidence expressed in him by a 
Gentile, struck Jesus with astonishment, and he 
turned to those who were with him, and declared 
with emphasis, that he had met with no faith like 
this among his own countrymen ; that people would 
come from the remotest quarters — from the East 
and the West, and the North and the South, and 
enter into communion with the saints and patri- 
archs, while those who accounted themselves the 
exclusive heirs of the coming kingdom would be 
thrust out into darkness. Turning then to the 
centurion, he said, ' As you have believed, so be it.' 
The centurion, who had shortly before left the sick 
lad, from the impulse of a faith which we may 
readily imagine the boy to have caught from him, 
returned home, and that very hour the boy was 
restored. His disease was a nervous one, palsy; 
and we readily see how the expectation of seeing or 
hearing the wonder-worker must have acted on the 
susceptible mind of the youth. He must needs 
have got well. 

In this incident we have an illustration of the 
prophetic insight of Jesus. He saw in the case of 
8* 



90 HISTORY OF JESUS, 

this Roman a token and pledge of the force of the 
Truth, which, when Israel should be cast out and 
cast down, would touch human hearts all over the 
earth, and bring them into full fellowship with the 
great and good of past times. 

On another occasion, there was a woman in the 
crowd following Jesus, who had been a sufferer for 
years, trying all sorts of remedies in vain. She 
had heard of the wondrous cures he had wrought ; 
and her own suffering condition would naturally 
and strongly incline her to believe in his power. 
Perhaps she had herself witnessed the effect of the 
extraordinary gift with which he was endowed. 
But, with a natural timidity, she shrunk from soli- 
citing his aid ; or, in her humble opinion of herself, 
she perhaps did not dare to hope that, amidst so 
many people, and with his attention so occupied, he 
would pay any regard to her. And yet her faith 
in him was undoubting. She thought, — so pro- 
found was the reverence he had awakened in her, — 
that, if she could only get behind him, and touch 
only so much as the hem of his garment, she would 
at once be healed. Accordingly, she pressed 
through the crowd, and, watching her opportunity, 
clutched at his clothes with that convulsive motion 



HISTORY OF JESUS- 91 

which her throbbing heart, all in a tremble of emo- 
tion, must have prompted. It was her last hope of 
cure. The touch must have been to her like an 
electric stroke — not merely affecting her nerves, 
but penetrating like lightning to the inmost springs 
of her life — and instantly she felt that she was 
healed ! Jesus perceived something significant in 
the manner in which his clothes had been grasped ; 
and, surmising the real state of the case, turned 
round, and asked who it was. The persons about 
him were surprised that, in such a crowd pressing 
upon him, he should ask such a question. He per- 
sisted; there was, he was persuaded, a particular 
meaning and purpose in the act. Upon this, the 
woman, naturally ingenuous, or, perhaps, after such 
an experience of his power, thinking it fruitless to 
attempt to conceal herself, came forward and con- 
fessed the whole truth. She must have felt as if 
she had committed a fraud, in having stolen from 
him her cure ; for she had imagined that there was 
a mysterious healing power in his very clothes. 
Jesus assured her that she had no reason to be 
afraid, bade her be of good cheer, and told her that 
faith had cured her. We thus see why it was that 
he insisted upon knowing who it was that had 
caught at his garments. He divined what the mat- 



92 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

ter was; and, whoever it was that had done the 
thing, he wished to assure the person of his good- 
will, and inform him or her that it was not any 
medical efficacy in his clothes, but the person's own 
faith, which wrought the cure. He wished espe- 
cially to commend that. 

This incident occurred when Jesus was on his 
way to the house of a man of some note, one of 
the presiding officers of the synagogue, who had 
solicited a visit from him on account of his daugh- 
ter, a child of twelve years of age, who was lying 
at the point of death. Before he reached the 
place, intelligence came that the little girl had 
breathed her last. Jesus, bidding those who were 
with him to fear nothing, but only to have confi- 
dence in him, continued on his way. When he 
reached the house, he found many people there, and 
the mourning women whom it was the custom to 
employ on occasions of death, and who, with cun- 
ning power, so counterfeited the expressions of grief, 
as to move all beholders to tears. He instantly 
caused the people to leave the house; declaring 
that the child was not dead, but only asleep. The 
declaration was received with incredulity and deri- 
sion. Nevertheless, all were dismissed but the 
parents of the child and two or three of his friends. 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 93 

He then took the little girl by the hand, and with 
a tone of authority bade her rise. And she rose 
immediately, and stood on her feet and walked, and 
he directed that something should be given her to 
eat. All these wonderful effects which he wrought 
are marked by a striking directness and simplicity 
in his mode of proceeding. There was no imposing 
work of preparation, no parade. But all that was 
done was done naturally, without noise or show. 
In this last instance, so far from making any ac- 
count of his power, he tried to conceal it. He said 
that the child was not dead, but only asleep ; which 
he could safely say in the confidence of that power 
by which he was about to recall her to life. He 
permitted only two or three persons to be present, 
and these he charged not to tell what had taken 
place; for the sensation these wonderful things 
produced was so great, that he had to retire before 
it, lest the people should insist upon his placing 
himself at their head, as their leader and king. 

It lay in the nature of the ease, that Jesus coulcT 
not long continue saying and doing these things, 
without coming in collision with that powerful class 
and their adherents, who arrogated to themselves 
all authority and influence in matters of religion. 



94 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

In their hands, religion was made a mere string of 
outside^ ritual observances, dead husks, on which 
they pretended to feed the people, but which could 
meet the wants, interest the affections, of no living 
soul. It had no sincerity, but was dry and dead, 
w T ith not a drop of life in it. It thrust away into 
the background, amongst unregarded things, the 
eternal laws of Justice and Humanity, and put for- 
ward in their place the most trivial ceremonies. 
The established teachers of the religion of the day 
were those classes, designated in the records as 
Scribes, lawyers or teachers of the Law, of the 
sect of the Pharisees. All the literary men of the 
country were entitled Scribes, or teachers of the 
Law, because the Scriptures, the sole literature of 
the nation, constituted their chief study. 

Besides the written Law, contained in the Old 
Testament, the Jews recognized an oral law, 'the 
traditions of the elders ;' a multitude of rules and 
precepts, chiefly ceremonial, which had been handed 
down from age to age, and to which every age made 
additions, until it became necessary, if they were to 
be preserved, that they should be committed to 
writing, which was done at an early period of the 
Christian Era. They are now extant in some dozen 
folio volumes, called the Talmud. There are pas- 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 95 

sages and parables in this work of a truly Christian 
beauty ; but, for the most part, it is a mere compi- 
lation of petty and trifling rules pertaining to the 
ceremonial of religion. The character of its con- 
tents may be gathered from the occasional refer- 
ences in the accounts of the life of Jesus, to the 
traditions of the elders. These traditions were to 
the written Law of the Old Testament precisely 
what creeds, and confessions of faith, and transla- 
tions, among Christians, have been and are to the 
Bible. 

The Pharisees, a sect whose name is synonymous 
with Separatists, magnified the authority of the tra- 
ditions, to the neglect of the written Law. Just as, 
in these days, there is a great zeal for the Church ; 
by which is meant hardly anything more than this 
or that ecclesiastical organization ; a zeal which ex- 
pends itself in church-building and church-going, to 
the utter neglect of the plainest rights, and the most 
sacred social and personal obligations ; so, in the 
days of Jesus, the Pharisees were punctilious to the 
last degree about a mere ritual, the observance of 
the Sabbath, the washing of hands before eating, 
and numberless trivialities, while they passed over 
justice, and the love of God and man. When we 
read, at the present day, the proceedings of General 



96 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

Assemblies of this Church or that, and observe 
their silence in regard to the greatest existing 
wrongs, — the wrong of enslaving men, for instance, 
— and the emphasis with which they condemn 
dancing at social parties, we must needs be re- 
minded of those ancient Separatists, of whom Jesus 
said that they were very careful to strain the gnats 
out of their cups, while they swallowed camels 
without the slightest spasm. 

The Pharisees looked upon the common people 
as ignorant and accursed. They kept them weighed 
down with a burthen of ceremonial observances, 
which they themselves extended not a finger to 
lighten. They cherished a boundless love of 
spiritual domination. The real, inmost wants of 
the souls of men went wholly unsupplied. The 
uneducated poor knew not their own need. They 
were overawed by the imposing appearance of sanc- 
tity worn by their spiritual guides, who were ready 
to persecute to the death any one who dared to 
question their authority, any one who showed re- 
gard for anything but appearances. So grossly 
was religion perverted in their hands, so entirely 
had it become an outside show, a corpse without 
any animating principle, that every touch of com- 
mon humanity seems to have been obliterated from 
their hearts. 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 97 

The difference between these formalists and Jesus 
struck every one at once. It was the difference 
between the harsh creaking of machines and a 
genial human voice. With what weariness and con- 
straint the people hearkened to the common teachers 
of the Law, we may infer from the eagerness with 
which they listened to Jesus. Him they heard 
gladly. They crowded round him ; among them 
numbers, perhaps, who hardly ever entered a syna- 
gogue ; moved in great part, no doubt, by curiosity 
and a love of the marvellous. Still, it is apparent 
there was a power in his w T ords that drew them to 
him ; they came to hear as well as to see. When, 
to avoid the crowd, he crossed the lake, they went 
in pursuit of him; following him, for days toge- 
ther, from place to place, and forgetting fatigue 
and hunger, until they were ready to faint. Their 
eagerness touched him to the heart. He pitied 
them. They seemed to him, as he said, like sheep 
wandering without a shepherd, or like a harvest- 
field ripe for the sickle. "Pray ye the Master of 
the harvest," said he to his friends, "to send 
laborers into the field." It was the evident wants 
of the people, their manifest need and desire of 
instruction, that led him, as I suppose, to send 
abroad over the country, first his few chosen 
9 



98 HISTORY OF JESUS* 

friends, and then seventy others afterwards, to 
diffuse far and wide the interest which had been 
awakened, and to fix public attention upon the 
necessity of thorough reformation, in view of the 
portentous signs of the times, and to prepare the 
people for the great change which was at hand. 

The enthusiasm with which the mass of the 
people flocked to him, awoke the hostility of the 
ruling classes ; and we find Scribes and Pharisees 
mingling in the crowd, and becoming conspicuous. 
He spoke of these classes, from the first, in terms 
of strong and unqualified condemnation. He de- 
clared the righteousness upon which they laid so 
much stress, and which was a mere external show 
and make-believe, of no value. He told the people 
that if they had no righteousness but that, they 
could never participate in the privileges of the 
coming kingdom. How must the hearts of the 
Pharisees have boiled over with wrath, when, in 
condemnation of such as accounted themselves reli- 
gious, and looked down with contempt on others, 
he told a story about a Pharisee and a Publican, — 
exalting the one and abasing the other, — and thus 
insulting their whole pious body before all the 
world, by bringing them into odious contrast with 
vile tax-gatherers ! It was such things as this that 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 99 

stirred their bitterest hate. Accordingly we find 
them, on repeated occasions, acting the part of 
spies, perverting his words and actions. They 
called him blasphemer, Sabbath-breaker, drunkard, 
associate of the vilest of the people, in league with 
evil spirits. 

After a temporary retirement before the popular 
feeling, he returned again to Capernaum. The 
rumor of his being in a certain house was instantly 
spread far and wide, and the house was thronged, 
and there was no getting near the door. There 
came four men, bearing on a litter a man suffering 
with paralysis, but it was impossible to get through 
the crowd. The houses of the place, according to 
the style of building prevalent in the East, a style 
suggested by the climate, were flat-roofed, and the 
tops of the houses were places of daily resort, 
where families met and neighbors interchanged talk. 
The men who were bearing the sick man, taking 
advantage of this construction, carried him into 
one of the houses near that in which Jesus was, 
and passing the litter to the top of the house in 
which Jesus sate discoursing, broke away and en- 
larged the opening or door in the roof, which offered 
communication with the interior, and thus lowered 



100 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

the sick man down into the room where Jesus was, 
who was evidently touched by the confidence thus 
evinced in him. In the fact that this poor sufferer 
had caused himself to be brought and laid at his 
feet, he read the man's soul. His penetrating 
glance beheld, in every lineament of that wasted 
countenance, the faith, the fear, the veneration, the 
penitence, with which the shattered frame was shak- 
ing; and he instantly addressed the paralytic in 
words of the greatest kindness : " Son, be of good 
heart, your sins are all forgiven." The man's for- 
giveness was legible in his whole appearance, in 
every circumstance of the case. But there were 
Pharisees, teachers of the Law, present ; and when 
Jesus said this, they instantly knit their brows and 
exchanged looks of affected horror, as much as to 
say : " What horrible blasphemy is this ! Who is 
this man who undertakes to forgive sin !" Jesus 
saw at once what they were thinking of, and turned 
to them, and said in effect : " What are you mur- 
muring at ? You believe that suffering is a proof 
of sin in the sufferer. When the suffering is re- 
moved then, the sin is forgiven, as, according to 
your faith, you will admit. That you may know 
then that I have power to declare this man for- 
given," — with this, he turned to the sick man, and 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 101 

said to hini : " Rise up, and take your bed and go 
home." And he, that a moment before was so 
helpless that he could not move a limb, stood erect, 
and took up his bed and went ! What a sensation 
must it have caused outside, when he, whom the 
crowd saw a little while before borne, a mere 
wreck, into a neighboring house, was now seen 
making his way out of the door, bearing his bed 
upon his back. The people were all amazed, and 
glorified God. Well did they say to one another : 
"We never saw anything like this before !" 

It was such incidents as this, connected with the 
great influence which Jesus was gaining with the 
common people, that made the Pharisees rather shy 
of him. He was becoming too powerful to be let 
alone. Yet they did not often venture to confront 
him. Whenever they did cavil to his face, they 
were sure to get the worst of it. For the most 
part, they only watched him. They only looked, 
in silence ; but he would not suffer them to look 
their ill-will even ; he read their thoughts in their 
looks, and overwhelmed them with the resistless 
force of Truth. When they did not dare to speak 
to him, they went to those who were known as his 
particular friends. "Why," they inquired on one 
occasion, of his disciples, " why does he keep com- 
9* 



102 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

pany with publicans and men of no character?" 
Publicans, tax-gatherers, whose office was so odious 
that, for the most part, only men of the meanest 
description, renegades, would accept it. How 
pointed his words when he was told of this inquiry ! 
1 The well need not a physician, only the sick. I 
am come, not to call the righteous, but sinners, to 
repentance.' The Pharisees, punctilious in rites 
and sacrifices, had yet to learn the meaning of 
these words: I will have humanity rather than 
sacrifice. 

Again, in the spirit of the ruling sect, he was 
asked why, while the Pharisees and the disciples of 
John observed fasts, he enjoined no observances of 
the kind upon those who had attached themselves 
to him. The disciples of John were probably 
fasting at that time on account of the imprisonment 
of their master. 6 Can the attendants at a bridal 
fast,' he asked in reply, ' when the bridegroom is 
in their midst ? But the time will come, when the 
bridegroom will be taken from them, and then they 
will fast.' His disciples then were excited by the 
most joyous expectations. They were hoping that 
he would shower upon them the riches and honors 
of the coming kingdom. They regarded him as 
the attendants at a wedding look upon the bride- 



HISTORY OP JESUS. 103 

groom. All was then going on with them gaily 
as a marriage bell. But this state of things — 
this career of popularity — was not destined to 
last long; and we see here how early his mind 
was visited with a presentiment of his death. It is 
as if he had said : ' Do not talk about my disciples 
fasting now, while I am with them, a fountain of 
joy and hope. By and by, I shall be taken from 
them, and then they will really fast.' He then 
proceeded to intimate that it was wholly out of 
season for his disciples to fast then. They were not 
in a state for such sad observances. The idea was 
incongruous ; like putting new wine into old wine- 
skins, or new cloth into old garments. The bright 
hopes of the hour and the austerities of fasting had 
no consonance. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE SABBATH — THE PENITENT WOMAN — A SIGN 
— PHARISEES BLASPHEME — BREAD OF HEAVEN 
• — VISIT TO JERUSALEM — THE TEMPLE — NICO- 
DEMUS — SAMARITAN WOMAN — THE NATIONAL 
FESTIVALS. 

We have seen that, at the commencement of his 

public life, Jesus grew rapidly in the goodwill of 

the people. They regarded him with great favor. 

Indeed, their enthusiasm was continually rising to 

such a height that it obstructed his simple work ; 

and he was again and again compelled to suspend 

his labors, lest, in the ardor of their faith and 

hopes, they should engage in some tumultuous 

movement, of which they might expect him to take 

the lead. This popularity alone was sufficient cause 

for the hostility evinced towards him by the ruling 

religious teachers. But when, in addition to this, 
(104) 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 105 

he spoke of them in terms of the severest rebuke 
and indignation, when he warned the people against 
their false pretences, and when he discomfited their 
machinations, and convicted individuals of this 
class of their evil designs, their bitterest hatred 
was awakened, and, boiling with rage, they resolved 
upon his destruction. 

There was no respect in which they were more 
eager to ensnare him and bring him into disrepute, 
than in regard to the Sabbath, which was held in 
such superstitious reverence that, as we have seen, 
the people would not bring the sick to Jesus to be 
healed on the Sabbath, but waited till the sun was 
down, lest the day should be profaned. We find 
Pharisees watching him again and again, to see if 
he would break the Sabbath by healing on that day. 
He never denied the obligation or questioned the 
propriety of observing the day, but he declared 
that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for 
the Sabbath, — that the form must be accommodated 
to the spirit. 

Once, when he was teaching in a synagogue, 
there was a man present who had lost the use of 
his right hand. Certain Pharisees, leading mem- 
bers of the synagogue, and occupying conspicuous 
places, were on the watch. It was easy, I suppose. 



106 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

for any one, — certainly so for Jesus, — to perceive 
the evil motive by which they were actuated. He 
saw that they would willingly destroy him, if they 
could. But he kept no terms with them. He bade 
the man, whose hand was withered, stand forth in 
the presence of the whole assembly. When all 
w 7 ere waiting in breathless and pin-drop silence to 
see what he would do next, he turned to those evil- 
disposed men, who were thirsting for his blood, and 
asked them, in effect, i Which now is breaking the 
Sabbath, you or I ? I, who mean to do good and 
relieve this man, or you, who are bent on my de- 
struction V No answer was given to this question. 
What answer could be given? He paused; and, 
after fixing a look of mingled grief and indignation 
on those depraved men, he turned again to the man 
with a withered hand, and, with that commanding 
tone which must have been altogether peculiar to 
him, beggaring all description, he said to him: 
' Stretch forth your hand.' And the man, over- 
powered, stimulated, inspired, by that grand au- 
thority, stretched out his hand, and it was strong 
like the other ! By thus laying bare their false- 
hood in the full splendor of his truth and power, 
Jesus offended the Pharisees, on that occasion, if 
on no other, past all forgiveness. 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 107 

Again, at another time, when he was teaching in 
one of the synagogues on a Sabbath, there was a 
woman present who had for eighteen years been so 
bent down by disease, — a species of rheumatism, 
probably, — that she could not raise her body to a 
straight position. She had, no doubt, been long 
considered incurable. But Jesus spoke to her, 
telling her that her infirmity was at an end, and 
laying both his hands on her ; at which she was im- 
mediately enabled to straighten herself up. The 
instantaneous cure of this woman, long known for 
her infirmity, caused, of course, a great sensation. 
The stir, which it made on the spot, must have 
broken in upon the usual monotonous decorum of 
the place and the day ; for the ruling officer of the 
synagogue was enraged at the apparent desecration, 
and told the crowd that there were six days for 
work; and that then, and not on the Sabbath, 
people should come and be healed. At this, Jesus 
turned to the man with warmth, and exclaimed: 
4 Thou hypocrite ! does not every one of you go 
and loose his ox or his ass on the Sabbath, and 
lead him away to watering ? And is not this wo- 
man, a daughter of Abraham, a sufferer for eighteen 
years, to be loosed from this crushing infirmity on 
the Sabbath ?' Thus he confounded his adversaries, 



108 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

and the people exulted in the wonderful things 
which he did and said. As he was in the habit of 
attending the synagogues on the Sabbath, incidents 
similar to the foregoing occurred frequently. On 
these occasions, he did not merely defend himself, 
he assailed and overwhelmed all opposition. 

Once, teachers of the Law and Pharisees from 
Jerusalem, accosted him, and wished to know why 
his disciples disregarded the traditions of the elders, 
neglecting to wash their hands before eating. With 
what power did he retort upon these questioners ! 
"Why do you," he demanded in reply, "set aside 
the commandment of God, for your tradition ? God 
hath said : Honor thy father and mother ; and who- 
so honoreth not father or mother, let him die the 
death ; but you say that, if a man will give to the 
service of the Temple what he might use for the 
support of his parents, he shall be discharged from 
his duty to them. Well did the prophet say of 
you: This people draw nigh to me with their 
mouths, and honor me with their lips, whilst their 
hearts are far from me. But in vain do they worship 
me, teaching for truths the commandments of men." 
Upon this occasion, Jesus appears to have been so 
impressed by the hollow outsideness of the religious 



HISTORY OF JESUS, 109 

teachers of the day, who were so scrupulous about 
washing their hands, lest they should be defiled, 
while their hearts were polluted with all manner of 
evil, that he took pains to call the attention of the 
people, and said to them : " Hearken to me, every 
one of you, and understand : There is nothing from 
without a man that, entering into him, can defile 
him ; but the things which come out of him, those 
are they that defile the man," (the wicked thoughts 
that proceed out of his heart.) " If any man have 
ears to hear, let him hear." 'Do you know/ said 
his friends to him after he had said this, ■ that the 
Pharisees were offended at what you said?' He 
replied, in effect, 'What if they were? Every- 
thing that is not founded in Truth, planted by God, 
will be rooted up. Let them alone ; they are blind 
leaders of the blind. And when the blind lead the 
blind, both must fall into the ditch.' He saw 
that, under the blind guidance of their established 
teachers, the people must be led on to ruin. Here 
was one of the signs of the times, in which he read 
the coming doom of the nation. 

But the Pharisees, though depraved as a body, 

were not all lost to a sense of truth. Some among 

them, we are told, were favorably impressed by 

the words and works of Jesus, though they were 

10 



110 HISTORY OP JESUS. 

too timid to avow it openly. Such an one was 
Nicodemus, who went to visit Jesus by night, and 
who was disposed to defend him in the meetings of 
his sect. Such an one, also, was the Pharisee, 
Simon, who showed so much goodwill to Jesus, as 
to invite him to his house, where that touching 
scene occurred, in which a woman of notoriously 
bad character bore so conspicuous a part. 

Who can contemplate that scene without emotion? 
I suppose that, whenever Jesus was known to be in 
any house, the ordinary rules of propriety were sus- 
pended, and the place was, perforce, thrown open 
to strangers. A poor, heart-broken creature, heed- 
less of the scorn of those who shrunk from her as 
if her touch were contamination, followed Jesus into 
the house, and, placing herself behind the couch on 
which, according to the custom of the country, 
he lay reclined at table, bent down and kissed his 
feet, upon which her streaming tears fell, which 
she wiped away with that dishevelled hair ; once, I 
suppose, her' pride, but now left to flow down all 
unregarded. She anointed his feet, also, with a 
fragrant ointment. The Pharisee, hospitable though 
he was, was shocked that his guest should allow 
such a woman to touch him. Jesus perceived the 
thoughts of his host, and said to him : " Simon, I 



HISTORY OF JESUS. Ill 

have something to say to you." Simon said, 
"Master, say on." " There was a certain cre- 
ditor," said Jesus, "who had two debtors, one of 
whom owed him five hundred pence, and the other 
fifty. And when they had nothing to pay, he 
frankly forgave them both. Tell me now which 
will love him most ?" Simon answered, " I suppose 
that he to whom he forgave most." Jesus said to 
him, "Thou hast rightly judged." And then, 
turning to the woman, " Seest thou this woman?" 
he continued; "When I entered thy house, thou 
gavest me no water for my feet, but she has washed 
my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs 
of her head. Thou gavest me no kiss, but this 
woman, since the time I came in, has not ceased to 
kiss my feet. My head with oil thou didst not 
anoint, but this woman hath anointed my feet with 
ointment. Wherefore I say unto you, her sins, 
numerous as they were, are forgiven,- — she is a for- 
given woman; the deep emotion she evinces, in 
revealing her penitence, shows also that she is 
forgiven, and is to be received and treated accord- 
ingly." And then he bade the woman go in peace; 
assuring her that she was forgiven, and that the 
faith she had shown in him was the pledge of that. 
If, as there is some ground for supposing, Simon 



112 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

had been healed of leprosy, perhaps by Jesus, then 
the contrast, drawn between this woman and his 
host, is rendered more pointed. 'If, in being 
healed of your leprosy,' Jesus may be understood 
as saying, ' you deem yourself forgiven for the sins 
of which you considered the leprosy as a punish- 
ment, and, in testimony of your thankfulness, you 
have invited me to your house, how much more 
manifest is it that this woman is forgiven, whose 
gratitude is so expressive !' 

Another instance, of a Pharisee, not only kindly 
disposed towards Jesus, but open to the force of 
Truth, is presented in that teacher of the Law, 
who, after listening to him, broke forth in assent 
and commendation ; and of whom Jesus himself 
remarked, that he was not far from the kingdom of 
God. 

And even the most bitter and determined of those 
opposing religionists seem at times to have given 
way before the mighty power of his truth. This I 
infer from their asking him for a sign. The Jews 
appear to have expected that, when their Messiah 
should appear, he would make some signal, — give 
a sign, whereby he might be recognized beyond 
the possibility of a mistake. What the precise 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 113 

nature of this sign was to be, we have no means of 
determining. It was, I imagine, some miraculous 
appearance, corresponding to the established idea 
of the expected Deliverer, as a temporal prince, 
and rendering the claims of him who should give it 
indubitable. That this expectation of a sign ex- 
isted, is evident from the words of Paul: "The 
Jews seek after a sign." On more than one occa- 
sion, Pharisees went to Jesus and required of him 
a sign. And it is observable that this request was 
always made just after he had done some very won- 
derful thing. 

Once, a man was brought to Jesus, afflicted with 
a disease which deprived him of sight and speech ; 
and supposed, of course, according to the universal 
belief of the people, to be under the influence of 
an evil spirit. In the presence of a crowd, Jesus 
healed the man. The cure was so sudden and so 
complete, that the people, overwhelmed with won- 
der, began to say aloud, that he who had wrought 
such a cure must be the anointed Leader, — the son 
of David. Some Pharisees, who were present, 
enraged at hearing such things said, and driven to 
extremities, exclaimed : 'No; this man must be in 
league with evil spirits, — with the very prince of 
them, Beelzebub himself;' by thus ascribing the 
10* 



114 HISTORY OF JESUS* 

cure he had wrought to the chief of evil spirit^ 
virtually admitting that it was far above the ordi- 
nary power of man. In answer to this charge? 
Jesus poured forth a boiling torrent of indignant 
truth. ' Every kingdom,' said he, ' every city, 
every house, at war with itself, is brought to ruin. 
If Satan cast out Satan, how can his power stand ? 
If it is by his aid that I have relieved this man, 
where do your exorcists get their power? Let 
them condemn you* But if I cast out spirits by 
the power of God, then is the kingdom of God 
come among you. What says the common proverb ? 
— He that is not with me is against me. This 
shows that, as I evidently am not with Satan, I 
must be against him. But you are incorrigible. 
You virtually confess that the power I have exer- 
cised is far above the power of man, but you blas- 
pheme it. You call the evident power of God the 
power of the DeviL What can reach you, when 
you thus defame God himself? You are past for- 
giveness ; for you cannot be changed that you may 
be forgiven, if the acknowledged power of God 
cannot move you. You might speak against me, a 
man, and be forgiven ; but when you speak thus 
against God himself, it is unpardonable. There is 
no hope of you now or ever. But what else is to 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 115 

be expected of you ? It is in vain to look for good 
from the lips of those whose hearts are so depraved. 
If the tree is good, the fruit will be good ; if the 
tree is bad, so is the fruit. ye vipers ! how can 
ye, being evil, speak good things ? Out of the evil 
in your hearts your mouths speak.' 

I think it very plain that Jesus expressed himself, 
on this occasion, with the greatest earnestness. He 
is to be understood, not as speaking to the letter, 
but as pouring forth, in the strong, unqualified 
language of deep emotion, the indignation of a 
heart shocked to its very centre at the exhibition 
of such inveterate perversity. 

But, notwithstanding, these Pharisees immedi- 
ately showed some evidence of relenting. They 
asked for a sign ; as much as to say, ' It must be 
confessed, you say and do wonderful things, give us 
now a sign ; this is all we need to satisfy us.' The 
sign required was, of course, some miracle in con- 
formity with their conceptions of what the Messiah 
was to be, a military leader and political deliverer. 
But as this was not the character in which Jesus 
appeared, such a sign as was demanded could not, 
in the nature of things, be given. He told them 
that no sign would be given them, except one drawn 
from the history of the humblest of the prophets ; 



116 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

between whose fortunes and his own death and 
resurrection, there would prove to be a resemblance. 
That would be the most expressive sign that he 
could give, or they receive, of his authority. 

That Jesus himself regarded the request of the 
Pharisees for a sign as an evidence that they were 
disposed to yield — that their unbelief was giving 
way for the moment at least, I infer from his own 
words. He proceeded to describe the state of a man 
possessed with an evil spirit, — how the evil spirit 
appears to leave the man for awhile, and then re- 
turn again with sevenfold fury. Perhaps such had 
been the condition of the very person whom he had 
just relieved. In this description, he portrayed 
also the Pharisees, who might seem for awhile to be 
deserted by the evil spirit of unbelief, but still there 
was no dependence to be placed on their cure. The 
moral disease would return in an aggravated form, 
and they would be worse than ever. 

Is it not evident that Jesus was profoundly 
moved? So absorbed was he in what he was 
saying, that when some one, heedless of what was 
going on, or wishing to interrupt him, called out to 
him, ' while he was yet talking,' and told him that 
his mother and brothers were standing outside the 
crowd, desiring to speak with him; — they were 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 117 

alarmed, probably, at the stir that was made, and 
wished to persuade him to go home with them ; — 
he appeared to forget that he had a mother or 
brothers ; not that his heart, that yearned towards 
his mother amidst the blood, and torture, and 
death-sweat of the Cross, was wanting in filial love ; 
but at the moment, and for the moment only, lost 
to everything but a sense of the Truth with which 
his mind was filled, he forgot his nearest natural 
ties. What a divine touch of Nature is here ! 
"Who is my mother?" he exclaimed; "and who 
are my brothers?" And then, pointing to his 
friends, he added, "Behold my mother and my 
brothers ! for whosoever will do the will of my 
Father in Heaven, the same is my mother and 
sister and brother." He loved his mother, and was 
ready to render her all that was due to her. But 
he loved Truth and humanity and the will of God 
more; these he loved with transcendent devo- 
tion. 

It was on this occasion, as I suppose, and as I 
have elsewhere stated, that a woman in the crowd, 
upon hearing his mother mentioned, broke forth in 
blessing her, who had borne such a son. The way 
in which he received this woman's benediction of 
his mother discloses, I think, the same absorption 



118 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

of mind in him, which is apparent in the foregoing 
scene. He turned to her, and said, in effect : ' Do 
you call my mother blessed ? Blessed rather are 
you, if you listen to the Truth of God and keep 
it." 

Three or four times, the request for a sign was 
repeated. Something was evidently wanted, which 
should be, not a mere exhibition of extraordinary 
power, but such an act as would show Jesus to be 
such a person as the nation was waiting for. This 
request, always coming immediately after he had 
done something wonderful, laid bare the obstinacy 
with which the people were clinging to the idea of 
a political deliverer. It showed that nothing he 
had done or could do would satisfy them, unless he 
assumed the character upon which their hearts 
were set. It showed him that the attempt to dis- 
abuse them of this false expectation was well nigh 
hopeless. Accordingly, once, when certain Phari- 
sees desired of him a sign, we are told that he 
"sighed deeply," and exclaimed, "Why does this 
generation seek after a sign ? I solemnly declare 
there will no sign be given them." 

Once, when, by the extraordinary power with 
which he is so abundantly shown to have been en- 
dowed, he had, with a few loaves and fishes, fed and 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 119 

refreshed the exhausted multitude who had followed 
him out into the desert and remained with him 
whole days, he was asked for a sign. It was said 
to him, ' You have certainly fed us very wonder- 
fully ; but this is not enough to satisfy us that you 
are the Messiah, for you ought to do as much or 
more than Moses did. You have not done as much 
as he. He fed our fathers, in the wilderness, with 
bread of Heaven.' The manna, upon which the 
Israelites were fed in the desert, now known to be 
a natural production, was supposed to have fallen 
from heaven. To this Jesus replied with emphasis, 
i Moses did not give you the true bread of heaven ; 
but the true bread of heaven, my Father is giving 
you now.' Then they said to him, 'Master, give 
us this bread always/ And he said, " I am the 
living bread. He that comes to me will never 
hunger, and he that believes me will never thirst. " 
Amplifying the figure of bread, thus naturally sug- 
gested, he proceeded to allude to his death ; declaring 
that he was about to give himself up wholly, body 
and blood, for the sake of Truth, to feed the world. 
But the people could not understand him. They 
took his words to the letter. His spiritual meaning 
escaped them, and they murmured their difficulties. 
He told them that it was in vain that they mur- 



120 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

mured ; that they could not be expected to under- 
stand him ; that they came after him only from a 
vague curiosity, to witness wonders, and with selfish 
aims and hopes. It was impossible that, in this 
state of their minds, they should understand what 
he was saying. No one could understand him, 
unless he was inspired by the same spirit with him- 
self. His discourse on this occasion was so unsatis- 
factory, that many, disappointed and shocked, 
ceased from following him any longer; so many, 
indeed, that he appears to have contemplated the 
defection even of those who had attended him the 
most faithfully ; for he said to the chosen twelve, 
" Will ye also leave me?" Simon Peter, ever for- 
ward to speak for the rest, replied, "Master, to 
whom shall we go ? Thou hast the words of eternal 
life." 

But what particularly strikes me in this passage 
of his history, is that, when asked for a sign, he 
was led, as on all the other occasions when a sign 
was required, to allude to his death. That, he 
truly and very naturally represented as the greatest 
sign that he could possibly give of his truth. He 
was about to give up his life ; he could do nothing 
more or greater, to prove that he was true and 
heaven-sent. 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 121 

As I have already remarked, it is not easy to 
determine the duration of the public labors of 
Jesus. The shortest time that has been assigned, 
and the most probable, for the length of his public 
life, is a little more than one year. Some suppose 
that he went about, teaching and working miracles, 
three or four years. The opposition which was 
made to him, and which his fearless speech must 
have greatly exasperated, was too malignant and 
too powerful to permit of his continuing long un- 
harmed. I gather, that the greater part of his time 
was spent in Galilee, and at a distance from the 
metropolis, Jerusalem, where the influence of the 
Pharisees was most formidable. He visited Jerusa- 
lem, however, upon the occasion of the grand 
national festivals, of which there were four every 
year. But it was perilous remaining there long. 
His enemies there were powerful and on the alert. 

At an early period after his appearance in public, 
he went to Jerusalem to attend at the Passover. 
On this visit, he attracted great attention by the 
extraordinary things which he did. At Jerusalem, 
as well as elsewhere, his steps were thronged. He 
visited the Temple, where he found that the money- 
changers, who furnished those who came from a 
11 



122 HISTORY OF JESIT&\ 

distance and wished to pay their dues to the Tem- 
ple, with the current coin of Jerusalem, and the 
tradesmen, who supplied persons, resorting to the 
Temple to render their offerings and sacrifices, with 
oxen, sheep, and doves, had encroached upon the 
sanctity of the place, setting up their stalls and 
tables within its very precincts. Shocked by so 
glaring a desecration of a spot set apart for worship 
and prayer, he bade these people retire. "Make 
not," said he, "my Father's house a place of 
trade.' ' And with this, he took a piece of cord, 
which, considering the cattle collected there, we 
may readily suppose lay at hand, and, folding it 
into a whip, drove these desecrators from the place. 
Although he could not have taken the whip without 
intending to use it, there could hardly have been 
any occasion for its use, except to drive away the 
oxen and sheep. For the tradespeople must have 
been conscious that they had no right to be there, 
and the concern which Jesus showed for the sanc- 
tity of the Temple, was well fitted to enlist the 
feelings of the Jewish populace, even if they were 
not already awakened, in his favor. At the first 
intimation of the purpose of one who had a crowd 
to support him, the tradesmen retreated with pre- 
cipitation. A scene of temporary confusion ensued. 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 123 

Tables were overturned, and money was scattered 
on the ground. This proceeding could not fail to 
make a great impression. The fact that a solitary 
individual apparently, without any official authority, 
had accomplished such a reform so speedily, bore 
witness to his power. He was immediately asked 
for a sign. It was so much in character with the 
popular idea of the Messiah, that he should be 
zealous for the purification of the Temple, that 
they wanted in addition only such a sign as they 
asked for, to be fully satisfied that Jesus was the 
person they were expecting. To this request, he 
returned substantially the same answer that he gave 
whenever a sign was demanded ; making an obscure 
allusion to his death and resurrection. 

On the whole, a very favorable impression was 
made by him, on this visit to Jerusalem* Many who 
saw and heard him were inclined to believe in him. 

It was at this time that a leading Pharisee, Nico- 
demus, made him a visit ; — private, indeed, under 
the shadow of night, but still most momentous, as 
it has proved, for thousands and thousands of men, 
through long generations. He sought to speak 
with Jesus in private, but centuries overheard him, 
Little dreamed the Jewish elder, that the words 
that fell from the lips of Jesus, at that interview, 



124 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

were to sound through the world, in countless 
churches, for centuries, as the expression of truths 
of the deepest import to every soul of man, as, in- 
deed, they are. Those words have been taken up 
as the formula of a doctrine, and made the occasion 
of mysticism and fanaticism without end. And yet 
nothing could well be more natural, more accordant 
with the character and circumstances of the parties, 
than the conversation which took place that evening 
between Jesus and Nicodemus. 

It is reported by John, the dearest friend of 
Jesus. He was,, I suppose, present. And although 
I do not imagine there was any one of the friends 
of Jesus better qualified, both by character and 
acquaintance with Jesus, to give a faithful report 
of his words, yet I think it apparent that John has 
given the conversation in his own way. Much, in 
his account of the interview, which seems at first 
sight to be attributed by John to Jesus, has been 
supposed, and I think justly, to be the remarks of 
John himself. Still, it is by no means difficult to 
gather from John's account the substance of what 
Jesus said to the Jewish ruler. 

Nicodemus began with declaring to Jesus his 
conviction that he was a true man, sent from God. 
He evidently wished to be informed respecting the 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 125 

coming kingdom. Jesus told him that it was so 
entirely different from what the Jews were univer- 
sally expecting, that a man must be made over 
again, "born again," in order to understand it. 
As a Jew, Nicodemus was familiar with this lan- 
guage, in application to Gentile proselytes to Juda- 
ism, but he was at a loss to know how it could be 
applied to Jews, the destined heirs of the promised 
kingdom ; and by reverting to the literal meaning 
of the phrase, he virtually asked for an explanation. 
Jesus replied : ' I do not, of course, mean that you 
must literally be born again ; for what is born of 
the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is 
Spirit. A man must be born again, not merely, 
like your proselytes, by a baptism of water, but 
by a spiritual baptism. Wonder not that I say, 
you must be born again. You need not ask how 
it can be. The spirit of truth, by whose influence 
a man is renewed, comes and goes like the wind, 
the sound of which you hear, but you cannot tell 
whence it comes or whither it goes. So is it with 
every one who is spiritually born. You cannot 
tell how it is ; but, that this new birth of the spirit 
is real, is as obvious as the sound of the wind.' 

Nicodemus being still at a loss to understand 
what was meant, Jesus expressed his surprise that 
11* 



126 HISTORY OF JESUS, 

a Rabbi in Israel should be ignorant of such simple 
truths. Although Nicodemus retired with very 
little satisfaction, still, his friendliness towards 
Jesus was not abated, as we afterwards learn* 
He evidently cherished an interest in him, which, 
although he did not publicly avow it, led him on 
subsequent occasions to speak in his defence, and, 
at the last, to take part in paying respect to his 
remains. 

It was on his way back to Galilee, after this visit 
to Jerusalem, that Jesus held another conversation 
with a stranger, which, incidental as it was, has yet 
been heard all over the world. The full meaning 
of what was said by him then has yet to be 
fathomed. I refer to his conversation with the 
woman of Samaria. 

In going from Judea to Galilee, he was compelled 
to pass through Samaria, which lies between those 
two places. One day he reached a well, where he 
sate down to rest himself, while the friends who 
accompanied him went to a neighboring town to 
procure refreshments. I suppose he was not left 
all alone. John probably remained with him. 
While he was seated by the well, a woman came, as 
was her wont, to draw water. He asked her to 



HISTORY OF JESUS, 127 

give him to drink. The request surprised the wo- 
man; for the Samaritans were the special objects 
of Jewish bigotry, because, agreeing with them in 
the main, they yet dared to differ with the descend- 
ants of Abraham; and, of course, as is ever the 
way in such cases, the animosity between the two 
nations was peculiarly bitter. The Christian sects, 
that approach each other most nearly without en- 
tirely agreeing, are always the fiercest enemies. 
That a Jew should speak to her, or even look at 
her — that he should ask drink of her — she could 
hardly have expected. That one of that people, so 
bitter against her nation, would sooner die of thirst 
than be indebted to a Samaritan and a woman for 
a drop of water, was much more likely. The wo- 
man expressed her astonishment. In reply, Jesus 
told her that if she knew how Heaven was then 
favoring her, she would have asked of him, and he 
would have given her living water. . 'Where will 
you get the living water that you speak of?' asked 
she ; t You have no means of getting it from this 
well, which is deep. Are you greater than our 
father Jacob, who gave us this well, and drank of it 
himself, and his whole household? Have you 
better water than this spring, which has been flow- 
ing for so many years?' 'He who drinks of this 



128 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

water/ replied Jesus, 'will thirst again; but whoso- 
ever drinks of the water that I will give him, will 
never thirst ; but the water that I will give him will 
be a well of water within him, flowing forever.' 
< Give me some of this water/ said the woman, 
c that I may never again be thirsty, or be compelled 
to come here to draw water/ Seeing that she did 
not apprehend his meaning, and yet touched by her 
simplicity, he bade her go and bring her husband. 
" I have no husband," said the woman. The extra- 
ordinary knowledge which Jesus then showed of 
her past life, filled her with amazement. She saw 
at once that she was talking to no common person. 
"Sir!" she exclaimed, "I perceive that thou art a 
prophet." And instantly, and very naturally, she 
referred to him the vexed question between her 
countrymen and his, as to the place where Grod was 
to be worshipped; whether on Mount Gerizim, as 
the Samaritans contended, or at Jerusalem. Jesus, 
in answer, decided, as I suppose Truth will decide 
most of our controversies, that neither was right ; 
that the worship of God is living, spiritual, not 
formal, not dependent on place ; that the time would 
come when there would be no worship rendered on 
Mount Gerizim, nor yet at Jerusalem; and that 
the Invisible Father was at that very hour seeking 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 129 

for such to worship him, as would worship him 
really and spiritually. The woman was wholly un- 
able to take in truth, simple, yet so great : and she 
merely avowed, in reply, her belief that there was 
one coming who would explain everything. To 
this, Jesus answered explicitly, "I that talk with 
you am he." 

His friends had now returned with the refresh- 
ments they had gone to procure, and were surprised 
to find him engaged in familiar conversation with 
this Samaritan woman ; but they said nothing. He 
appears to have inspired them with such reverence 
for him, that they did not presume to question the 
propriety of what he was doing. The woman, for- 
getting, in her excitement, her errand to the well, 
leaving her water-jar, rushed home to call her 
friends and neighbors. Unconsciously, she had 
drunk of the living water of which Jesus spoke, 
and she thirsted no longer for the water of the 
well. "When she had gone, his attendants produced 
the food they had purchased; but, buried in 
thought, he heeded it not. They begged him to 
eat. But he refused. His hunger had been satis- 
fied. The interest he had taken in conversing with 
the woman, the truth which had just filled his mind, 
had fed him. He too had just been partaking of 



130 HISTORY OF JESUS* 

the living water and the living bread. "I have 
food," said he, "that you know not of." His dis- 
ciples, at a loss to understand him, began to ques- 
tion whether some one had not supplied his wants 
during their absence ; for they had left him at the 
well, tired, hungry and thirsty. He explained 
himself. 'My food,' said he, 'is to do the will 
of him that sent me, and to finish his work. This 
it is, which I have just been engaged in, that has 
refreshed me.' 

The woman now appeared in sight, returning 
with a great crowd, attracted by the account she 
had given of the wonderful stranger at the well. 
When Jesus saw the people approaching, he beheld 
in them a great moral harvest. The simple-minded- 
ness of the woman not only refreshed, it exhila- 
rated him. For the moment, all the sweat and 
blood, which it was to cost to prepare the field for 
the harvest, was lost sight of. "Look on the 
fields," he exclaimed to his disciples, pointing, we 
may suppose, to the eagerly approaching crowd, 
"they are white already to the harvest." All 
seemed to him ripe for the sickle. The chief labor 
appeared to him, in his then state of mind, to be 
over. There remained nothing to be done but to 
gather in the harvest. 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 131 

I am unable to express the sense of truth and 
nature which this scene creates in me. And yet I 
know not why I should designate this scene in par- 
ticular. The whole history breathes and throbs 
with life. 

The Samaritans were much more open-minded 
than the Jews. Jesus tarried among them a couple 
of days ; and many, after listening to him, avowed 
their full belief that he was the person who was to 
come. From Samaria he passed into Galilee, and 
was welcomed by the Galileans, many of whom had 
been at Jerusalem at the same time that he was 
there, during the Passover. 

Again, upon the occurrence of another of the 
national festivals, — which, is not specified, — he 
went again to Jerusalem, where his life was endan- 
gered on account of a cure which he performed 
there on a Sabbath. 

There was at Jerusalem a mineral spring, or 
bath, which was built over, and was approached by 
five entrances or porches, and the waters of which, 
occasionally in a state of ebullition from some sub- 
terranean chemical action, were supposed, and had, 
I suppose, been actually found, to be of a highly 
curative quality ; especially when the agitation of 



132 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

the water, — believed, according to Jewish modes 
of thinking, to be caused by the agency of an 
angel, — was the greatest. There was, in all pro- 
bability, no precise knowledge as to the medicinal 
effects of this spring. Some it cured, and on others 
it had no effect. And when it failed, the failure 
was ascribed to its not being tried at the right 
moment, when the ebullition of the water was the 
greatest, and its consequent efficacy was supposed 
to be so too. 

However this may have been, Jesus happened, 
one Sabbath, to visit the place, followed by a crowd. 
Among a number of infirm persons, collected round 
the spring, awaiting the agitation of the water, 
there lay a poor man, who had suffered from bodily 
infirmity thirty-eight years. Jesus had some know- 
ledge of this man. He spoke to him, inquiring 
whether he were willing to be made whole. The 
man replied that he had no one, when the angel 
came and troubled the water, to put him into it, but 
another stepped in before him, and then, as was 
believed, the medical virtue of the water was, for 
the time, exhausted. Having drawn the attention 
of the man to him, Jesus commanded him to rise 
up ; and, in order to give him assurance of his 
restored strength, and also, perhaps, in contempt 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 133 

of the false idea of sanctity connected with the 
Sabbath, bade him take up his bed and go away ! 
And immediately the man rose, and did as he was 
directed. Jesus, knowing the excitement it would 
cause, and the indignation that would be awakened 
at the supposed violation of the day, withdrew from 
the spot. The rage of his enemies was greatly 
stirred. They menaced his life. And when, in 
justification of himself, he afterwards said that his 
heavenly Father was always at work, without regard 
to days, and that he imitated his Father and did 
likewise, the declaration was considered as equiva- 
lent to arrogating to himself an equality with God, 
and the Pharisees were only the more exasperated. 
They were bent upon destroying him. Accordingly, 
he did not remain long in Judea at this time. To 
avoid the designs of the leading men at Jerusalem, 
he returned to Galilee, and travelled about there, 
teaching in the synagogues. 

He spent so much of his time in Galilee, away 
from Jerusalem, the centre and heart of the nation, 
that, when the festival of the Tabernacles arrived, 
— a festival commemorative of the sojourn of the 
Israelites in the desert, and celebrated by the erec- 
tion of tents or bowers all over Jerusalem, — the 
12 



134 HISTORY OF JESUS* 

brothers of Jesus advised him to go to the capital, 
and teach and work miracles there, and not keep 
himself retired in the country. They did not credit 
his claims. In reply to this advice, Jesus told them 
they could go to Jerusalem whenever they pleased ; 
that no danger threatened them ; but that he must 
choose his time, because he was exposed to hatred 
and violence. His brothers went to the feast, 
leaving him in Galilee. After they had gone, Jesus 
followed them privately. He sought to reach the 
city without its being known that he was coming. 
He was expected there ; and when he did not ap- 
pear, there was much talk and disputing about him ; 
some speaking for, and some against him. 

When the festival was about half over, and many 
probably had given up all hopes that he would 
come, he suddenly appeared in the Temple, teach- 
ing. And all who heard him were filled with 
wonder at the power with which he spoke ; and it 
was asked, i How came this man to know how to 
teach, having evidently never been educated?' 
'My teaching,' said he, 4s no acquisition of mine, 
it is His who sent me.' ' And every one,' he added, 
freely submitting himself to the judgment of all 
good men, 'who does His will may readily see 
whether it be His, or whether it is my own work.' 



HISTORY OP JESUS. 135 

And as he continued teaching, inquiry was made, 
6 Is not this the man whose life is sought ? How is 
it that he is allowed to speak thus boldly ? Do the 
rulers begin to think that this is the Messiah?' 
There were designs to arrest him, but no one ven- 
tured it. When it reached the ears of the Phari- 
sees, that the people were disposed to regard him 
as the Christ, in concert with the chief priests they 
authorized certain officers to watch for an opportu- 
nity to secure his person. But he was so prudent, 
and his friends were so numerous, that this was no 
easy undertaking. 

On the last day of the feast, which was the great 
day, distinguished by its imposing ceremonies, in one 
of the pauses, when the multitude assembled at the 
Temple had sung, in harmony with the observances 
of the occasion, " With joy you shall draw water 
from the wells of salvation/ ' Jesus stood up, and 
cried aloud, " If any one thirst, let him come to me 
and drink. He that trusts in me, from within him 
shall flow rivers of living water.' ' These words, 
sounding suddenly amidst the exciting formalities 
of the occasion, startled and impressed the vast 
multitude, and some exclaimed, i This must be the 
prophet!' and others said, 'It is the Christ.' And 
disputes arose, and again some would have seized 



136 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

Jesus ; but he had too many friends, and it was not 
attempted. The officers, sent expressly for the 
purpose, returned without him to their employers, 
who demanded why they had not brought him. 
Their answer was, " Never man spake like this 
man !" In their vexation, the Pharisees betray 
their principles, or no principles. They were fol- 
lowers of the rich and great, and despised the 
common people. ' Are ye too deceived?' said they 
to the officers ; c Have any of the rulers and Phari- 
sees believed in him ? The people, who know no- 
thing about religion, are accursed.' 

Upon the occasion of another of the festivals, 
commemorative of the purification of the Temple 
by one of the ancient kings, the Feast of the Dedi- 
cation, Jesus was at Jerusalem; and as it was 
winter, (December,) and the weather inclement, he 
kept within the Temple ; and while walking in that 
part of it entitled Solomon's Porch, some of the 
Pharisees gathered round him, with no good intent* 
They professed themselves anxious to have their 
doubts dissipated as to his being the Messiah. 
They sought to induce him to say in so many words, 
that he was that personage. He told them they 
might readily satisfy themselves, if they really 
wished to be satisfied, by considering what he had 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 137 

done. His life — his works showed what he was. 
With fearless integrity, he threw himself open to 
their scrutiny. 'But you do not believe in me/ he 
said, 'because you are not well disposed towards 
me. You are not my friends, my sheep. All who 
are such listen to me, and I can distinguish them, 
and they are obedient to me, and I give them an 
imperishable life. They cannot be taken away 
from me. My Father, through whose providence 
they are mine, is greater than all, and no one can 
take them from Him. My Father and I are of one 
mind.' In thus claiming intimate fellowship with 
God, he was regarded by the Pharisees as uttering 
blasphemy, and they threatened to stone him. * I 
have done many works of kindness among you,' 
said he, 'for which are you going to stone me?' 
'We are not going to stone you for any good work/ 
they replied, ' but because you, a mere man, make 
yourself God.' 'Is it not written,' said he, 'in 
your Law, which you venerate so profoundly, in 
reference to your own rulers and judges, and unjust 
judges too : I said ye are gods ? If those are 
called gods, in the Scripture, against whom the 
word of God came, and the Scripture is not without 
meaning, do you charge with blasphemy one whom 
the Father has sanctified and sent, because he 
12* 



188 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

claims to be the Son of God ? If I am not doing 
as the Father commands, do not believe me. But 
if I am doing the will and work of the Father, 
then, though you believe not what I say, pay re- 
spect to my works, and you will see that the Father 
is in me, and I am in the Father.' They would 
again have seized him, but he escaped unharmed. 

From Jerusalem, he went into the vicinity of the 
River Jordan, remaining there for some time, and 
passing thence into Galilee. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE PERSONAL DISCIPLES OF JESUS — THEIR AT- 
TACHMENT to him — peter's avowal of faith 

— THE DREAM OF PETER — THE CURE OF A LUNA- 
TIC — THE DISPUTES OF THE DISCIPLES. 

It is refreshing to turn from those who regarded 
Jesus with dislike, and who were continually misre- 
presenting his words and actions, and plotting 
against his life, to those who early attached them- 
selves to him, and whose devotion to his person was 
to the last, and towards the last especially, his 
only earthly solace. In the artless records of his 
life, where truth and reality are everywhere beam- 
ing forth upon us in undecaying freshness, there is 
nothing more touchingly accordant with our nature, 
than the notices which they give us of the love 
which his disciples, as they are termed, bore him, 

(139) 



140 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

and which grew up, like a thing of nature, in their 
hearts; deepening into the profoundest reverence^ 
until, amidst all the contradiction and bewilderment 
occasioned by the difference between his appearance, 
words and actions, on the one hand, and their 
deep-rooted Jewish preconceptions on the other, it 
became the commanding principle of their being. 

I suppose that most, if not all of those who from 
an early period were known as his friends, had been 
personally known to him for some time before ex- 
press mention is made of them ; and that the reso- 
lution to devote themselves wholly to attendance 
upon him, was not formed so suddenly as would 
seem from the statements of his biographers. Con- 
siderable allowance is continually to be made for 
their way of stating things, for the dramatic form 
in which such simple narrators always tell their 
stories. Although the personal followers of Jesus 
voluntarily became such, yet he selected them, not 
merely because they were willing to leave all and 
follow him, but because he knew them, and saw in 
them such qualities as fitted them for his purposes. 

He was by no means disposed, as it very plainly 
appears, to accept the services of all or any who 
might offer to attend him. While he was so wholly 
the Truth's, that he was sacrificing his life for it, 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 141 

he showed no solicitude about the number of his 
personal followers. He called many, but chose few. 
He had friends to whom he was, personally, strongly 
attached ; such as Lazarus, for instance, and, per- 
haps, Joseph of Arimathea, who do not appear to 
have taken any special part with him. This is a 
very remarkable trait in him. Individuals who 
undertake a work at all resembling his, are always 
prone to measure the merits of others by the inte- 
rest they manifest in their peculiar work. They 
are ever apt to overlook everything but a personal 
adhesion to them and their methods. They are 
anxious to swell the number of their adherents. 

But it was very different with Jesus. Instead 
of encouraging, he discouraged individuals, again 
and again, from joining him. So far from compro- 
mising the truth, or keeping it out of sight, for the 
sake of conciliating partisans, he stated the truth 
in its most repelling form, in a form likely to deter 
people from following him. Not for a single in- 
stant would he countenance any man in putting the 
slightest fraud upon himself. When the crowd was 
pressing upon him, excited by intense expectation 
of wealth and honors, he turned and said to them, 
' Whoever of you hateth not father and mother^ 
and all that he hath, yes, and his own life, he can- 



142 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

not be my disciple. If you would indeed follow 
me, you must consider yourself doomed to the 
worst of deaths, and bearing your crosses to the 
place of execution/ A most indiscreet way of 
speaking, if his object were to make friends. ' Mas- 
ter, I will follow you wherever you go,' said one to 
him. He saw that this man had not counted the 
cost. ' Follow me if you will,' he replied; 'but 
the foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have 
nests, but I know not where I shall rest my head 
at night/ Another offered to follow him, but asked 
permission to wait until he had performed his last 
filial duty for his aged father. Jesus perceived 
that this man wanted to temporize. c If you are 
coming with me, come now,' returned Jesus, ' and 
leave the dead — those who are as insensible to the 
call of Truth as the dead — to bury the dead/ 6 I 
will follow you/ said yet another, of a like tempo- 
rizing spirit, ' but let me first go and take leave of 
my family/ " No man, having put his hand to the 
plough," said Jesus, "and looking back, is fit for 
the kingdom of God." When a teacher of the 
Law asked him what he should do to obtain eternal 
life, he did not require that he should be a follower 
of his, but bade him go away and imitate the good 
Samaritan. So also, when a young man, of appear- 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 143 

ance the most prepossessing, of great wealth, a 
youth most acceptable, one would think, as a per- 
sonal follower, put the same question to him, he 
first told him to keep the commandments. And 
when the young man, not satisfied, still pressed the 
inquiry, Jesus then bade him dispose of all his pos- 
sessions and become his disciple ; requiring his 
personal adhesion only upon the hardest condition. 
Those whom he healed, and who, if any, would 
have been wholly at his service, he sent away. 

From these circumstances, apart from his express 
declarations on this point, I infer that his personal 
attendants became such, not merely through their 
own goodwill, but by his selection. He told them, 
however, on one occasion, that he had chosen them, 
not they him. The selection justified his judgment. 
Of the twelve, one indeed proved false and a traitor, 
conspiring with his enemies against him ; himself 
worse betrayed by the accursed thirst for gold. 
But even Judas had good in him, or Jesus would 
never have selected him. The vice of avarice, 
which plunged him into such an abyss of guilt and 
infamy, and has rendered his name but another 
word for the blackest treachery, was, I suppose, at 
the first, but feebly developed. But the relation in 
which the Twelve were brought to Jesus was fitted 



144 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

to try their souls to the very core, and bring out 
whatever good or evil there was in them. That 
Peter, the most prominent among them, was led, at 
a time of extreme peril, flatly, and with solemn 
oaths, to deny all acquaintance with Jesus, shows 
to what a searching trial his personal adherents 
were exposed. 

On the whole, it is quite evident that the disciples 
of Jesus, while they were very humble men, wholly 
uneducated, were yet, in an eminent degree, men 
of an artless and unstipulating honesty. They 
were singularly open to the force of Truth; as 
is shown by the commanding influence which his 
personal character obtained over them. Like the 
great mass of their countrymen, they were full of 
the expectation of the glorious revolution that was 
at hand. Their hearts were set upon the speedy 
appearance of a magnificent and heaven-anointed 
prince, who would dispense his bounty among the 
meanest of their people, and exalt the humblest 
Israelite above the kings of the earth. This ex- 
pectation was at first the main inducement that 
drew them to Jesus ; and the wonderful things that 
he did, the impression that he everywhere made, 
the crowds that he collected around him, — all in- 
timating that he was the man who was to come, — 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 145 

united to raise their expectations to the highest 
pitch. That he was the promised one, they were 
more and more convinced every day; and their 
belief that he would bestow on them honors and 
wealth grew daily, also. 

But, at the same time, there was springing up in 
their bosoms a sentiment of personal affection and 
reverence for him, of the strength and increase of 
which, I suppose, they themselves were, ordinarily, 
scarcely conscious. It soon came to be so strong, 
that they learned to bear to hear him say things 
utterly at variance with their darling hopes ; things 
which, if they had considered them well, would 
have shown them that those hopes were all futile. 
They learned to bear very patiently the delay of 
their passionate expectations, until, at last, those 
expectations faded away, farther and farther off, 
into the dim future. And although they never 
distinctly renounced them, to the day of their 
death, yet their cherished Jewish dreams, once so 
vivid and so near, came to be only dreams, barren 
pictures; and they found content and strength, 
come what might, in loving him, and in the power 
of all the truth, which, having fallen from his vene- 
rated lips, had sunk into their souls like the living 
words of God. 
13 



146 HISTORY OP JESUS. 

It is very interesting to observe, that the influence, 
which he exerted over his disciples the most power- 
fully, was, both on his part and on theirs, an un- 
conscious influence. His words they were often- 
times far from understanding. But there was an 
unrecognized force continually effused from his 
daily bearing, his looks and conduct, that went 
straight to their hearts, and bound them to him 
with a strength of affection which stood every 
shock, and prepared them to die in his behalf. 

From a passage which I have already had occa- 
sion to notice, we get an insight into the state of 
their minds during the early days of their attend- 
ance on their master. They were, at that period, 
in a state of delighted expectation. Occasionally 
he said things which they could not understand, or 
which, so far as they were intelligible, seemed to 
point darkly to disappointment and separation. 
But such thoughts were too repugnant to their 
fond hopes, too much at variance with what was 
actually going on, to be dwelt on for a moment. 
They eagerly dismissed them, and let their minds 
run riot in the fascinating vision of the Messiah's 
reign, summoned up by the miracles of goodness 
and power which he was performing, and by the 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 147 

exciting spectacle of the multitudes that crowded 
to see and hear him. Amidst a tumult of wonder 
and delight, and the acclamations of the people, 
the personal disciples of Jesus were like the at- 
tendants at some proud and brilliant festival ; and 
Jesus was among them as a bridegroom among his 
friends. 

After this most animating course of life had 
been going on for some time, we come, in the his- 
tory, to an incident which constitutes, I think, 
quite a prominent point in their lives, and, indeed, 
in the history of Jesus also. The occasion to which 
I refer was that when, so to speak, he sounded them 
as to their ideas in regard to him. 

In his journeyings over Galilee, he had reached 
Cesarea Philippi, the most northern point of that 
country. He had by this time gone over the whole 
land; and now he was about to return towards 
Jerusalem, visiting different towns and villages in 
Galilee and Judea. He foresaw that his career 
must terminate at the capital. He desired to pre- 
pare his disciples for what was to take place, and 
so was led to question them. He wished to know 
from them what the people at large said about him ; 
whom they thought him to be. His disciples told 
him that some said he was John, the Baptizer, and 



148 HISTORY OF JE6US. 

some, that lie was Elias or Jeremiah, or one of the 
old prophets, reappearing in the world. It appears 
to have been a matter of popular belief among the 
Jews, that when the kingdom of Heaven should 
come, some, if not all the ancient prophets, would 
rise from the dead, and aid the Messiah in the great 
work of restitution. 

Jesus then put the question directly to his friends, 
what they thought, whorii they supposed him to be. 
One of their number, Peter, whose character stands 
out as distinct and individual, as if there had been 
an express purpose to describe him particularly, 
and who always took the lead, answered for the 
rest, and, without hesitation, declared that he and 
his associates believed Jesus to be the Anointed 
Messenger, the Son of the living God. Upon 
Peter's making this declaration, Jesus instantly 
broke forth in a fervent benediction upon Peter, 
exclaiming, " Blessed art thou, Simon, son of 
Jonas ; for flesh and blood have not revealed it to 
you, but my Father who is in Heaven ;" and laying 
his hand upon Peter, as we may imagine, he added : 
" and upon this rock will I build, and the gates of 
hell shall not prevail against it." 

It is hardly possible for us to over-estimate the 
extraordinary openness evinced by Peter and the 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 149 

rest, in having come thus early to a full conviction 
that Jesus was the Messiah. It showed how much 
they had been impressed by the truth that was in 
his words and character ; truth which wrought no 
effect upon the better informed. It showed how 
little they had been affected by those circumstances 
about him, which were obviously so irreconcilable 
with the received idea of the Messiah, that the 
religious leaders of the day, with all their wisdom, 
found it easier to believe that he was a deceiver, in 
league with evil spirits, than that he was the man 
who was to come. Peter, it was evident, instead 
of being in bondage to Jewish ideas and prejudices, 
instead of being actuated by the passions of the 
flesh, had that open temper of mind which is the 
pure spirit of the Father. This had revealed the 
truth to him. 

From that time, Jesus, finding that his disciples 
had arrived at such full faith in him, began to talk 
more freely with them about his approaching fate. 
He foresaw, from the first, that he must die in the 
work and for the work to which he had devoted 
himself; that it was inevitable that he should pro- 
voke the opposition and wrath of the ruling powers 
of the nation, and that nothing would satisfy them 
but his blood. He foresaw that they would endea- 
13* 



150 HISTORY OF JESTJS, 

vor to cover him with shame, and that his deaths 
under the most ignominious circumstances, was de- 
termined upon. From the first, he intimated what 
his end was to be. Now he spoke out plainly. He 
knew his own purpose. He knew the prejudices 
and malice of his opponents. He saw that the 
conflict must come, and that his own life must be 
the sacrifice. As soon as it became clear to him 
that the Twelve believed him to be the Messiah, he 
began to prepare them for what was coming. He 
told them that he should go to Jerusalem, where 
the religious authorities, the priests and teachers 
of the nation, would rise against him, and put him 
to death ; and he declared that he would rise again 
from the dead, the third day afterwards. 

It may be asked why Jesus went to Jerusalem, 
when he foresaw that death awaited him there; 
why he did not avoid the capital, and continue 
teaching and going about in Galilee and other parts 
of the country. The fact was, I believe, that he 
had done all he could do. Such was the state of 
the public mind, that had he continued travelling 
about any longer, there would have been some sedi- 
tious outbreak of the people. As it was, it shows 
his wisdom, that he succeeded in making so wide 
an impression, in uttering so much truth, without 



HISTORY OF JESUS- 151 

any popular commotion. He accomplished as much 
as he did, only by the greatest care. He had 
withdrawn himself again and again, to allow the 
excitement to subside. Had he not done so, dis- 
turbances would have arisen, and his life might 
have been sacrificed by the frenzy of the people, 
or the violence of his enemies, at a moment when 
he was unprepared, and under circumstances not 
fitted to his great purpose. Between the enthu- 
siasm of the populace, and the hatred of his foes, 
he had a difficult path to follow. And he resolved, 
since he must perish, that the final scene should 
take place at the capital and centre of the nation, 
where his death would be public, and would occur 
under such circumstances as would present the 
great question between him and his countrymen 
under its true aspect. He would not permit his 
life to be taken from him. He sought to lay it 
down voluntarily and deliberately. And he did so. 
When, shortly after Peter's avowal of faith in 
him, Jesus told his disciples that he was to suffer a 
violent death at Jerusalem, Peter, with character- 
istic forwardness, and presuming evidently upon 
the high estimation in which, after the strong terms 
of commendation in which Jesus had spoken of 
him, he had reason to believe that he stood with his 



152 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

master, undertook to contradict and reprove him. 
"Be it far from thee, master; this shall not be 
done unto thee!" Although he believed Jesus to 
be the Messiah, yet he had as yet no right under- 
standing of the office of the Messiah. He still 
believed fully in the kingly character of that per- 
sonage, and now regarded Jesus as the Messiah in 
disguise. So far from dreaming of his violent 
death, he expected that his master would shortly in- 
vest himself with the external glory that belonged 
to his high office. Thinking of Jesus as he did 
now, he was shocked at the idea of his being treated 
with contumely and violence; and he expressed 
himself accordingly. Jesus replied to him with 
great severity. Holding himself irrevocably bound 
to meet the terrible fate that awaited him, he could 
not endure that it should be suggested that he was 
to avoid that fate. It was equivalent to proposing 
that he should be false to his first duty ; and he 
spoke to Peter as if he were the Evil One himself: 
' Get thee behind me, Satan ! Thou art a stumbling- 
block in my way. You think as the world thinks, 
and not in accordance with God's Truth.' How 
different, and yet how like himself, was Peter on 
these two occasions ! At one moment, represented 
as in communication with God; at the next, the 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 153 

very opposite of God — of the world, worldly ; at 
one moment, a foundation-stone, at the next, a rock 
of offence. How mortified and humbled must he 
have been, he, who, a little while before, was so 
exalted by the praises of his master ! 

We find Jesus, after this, speaking with new ex- 
plicitness ; deeming his disciples better able to 
understand him. 'If any man will follow me,' he 
began now to teach, c let him deny all his darling 
hopes ; let him consider himself already sentenced 
to a violent and shameful death; let him regard 
himself as a man bearing his cross, on the way to 
execution.' c Whosoever thinks to save his life by 
refusing to follow me, will lose it, and whoever 
holds himself prepared to sacrifice his life with me, 
shall find life forever. The crisis is momentous to 
every soul of man. What does it profit a man to 
gain the whole world and lose his own life, his very 
self ! The Messiah is coming, the reign of God is 
about to commence, when every man will be re- 
warded according to his works. Before some stand- 
ing here shall die, they will see the kingdom of God 
coming.' 

About a week after these sayings, he took the 
principal three of his disciples, and retired for rest 
and prayer, to a mountain. How long a time was 



154 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

spent there we cannot tell. While there, he once 
retired a short distance from his friends, and was 
absorbed in thought and devotion. Peter, James 
and John, were overpowered by the excitement they 
had undergone. Think what a change had come 
over their whole manner of life ! A little while 
before, they were spending day after day on the 
Sea of Galilee, in the small employment of fishing ; 
and one day was very much like another, varied 
only by the alternations of success and failure in 
their humble craft. But now, for some time, they 
had been travelling from place to place, mingling 
in immense throngs of people, witnessing events of 
the most startling character, which well nigh intox- 
icated them with the most splendid hopes. They 
had become assured that he, whom they were fol- 
lowing, was the anointed ambassador of God, the 
consecrated child of prophecy. They were, they 
believed, on the very threshold of the time, when 
the venerable forms of the ancient seers of Israel 
would rise from the grave and fill all hearts with 
rapture. 

Such, we have every reason to suppose, was the 
state of their minds, when Jesus, for the sake of 
the repose they all needed, and for prayer, retired 
with them to a mountain solitude. He had much 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 155 

to think of. They fell asleep. One of their num- 
ber, Peter, of a most ardent temperament, began 
to dream ; and in the visions of his sleep, his eyes 
having closed, perhaps, while fixed on the venerated 
form of his master, and his mind being filled with 
the idea of the Messiah's glory, he still saw Jesus ; 
but now all arrayed in robes of dazzling whiteness, 
in all that external glory associated with the person 
of the Messiah. And there appeared also to Peter, 
in his dream, two others, who, he thought, were 
Moses and Elias; and they conversed with Jesus 
about what was to take place, that mysterious de- 
cease, at Jerusalem. While he was thus dreaming, 
a cloud came up, and it thundered ; and the sound, 
startling the dreamer from his sleep, was instantly 
connected, as is not uncommon in dreams, with an 
articulate voice, uttering the very same words which, 
as Jesus had told his friends, had rung through his 
soul at his baptism. As Peter half awoke, the 
vision was vanishing, and he cried out, ' Master, it 
is good for us to be here : let us build three taber- 
nacles (or bowers) ; one for thee, and one for Moses, 
and one for Elias, and dwell here forever, in this 
blessed company/ James and John, awakened by 
the thunder and the voice of Peter, who, naturally 
enough, appeared to them to be talking without 



156 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

knowing what he was saying, and all prepared, 
after their recent exciting experience, for something 
startling at any moment, awoke only to fall pros- 
trate on their faces, overpowered by fear and awe. 
Jesus came to them, and raised them up, and there 
was no one there but Jesus, in his usual garb. 
Peter then, with his characteristic self-confidence, 
told what he had seen. The vision, which may 
all have passed in an inappreciable space of time, 
as is the nature of dreams, had to Peter the vivid 
distinctness of reality. James and John were, of 
course, disposed to fall in with Peter's account 
without a moment's hesitation; for, though they 
had not distinguished what the voice from heaven 
said, they had heard, and been awakened by, the 
sound. Accustomed to refer all things to God as 
their Source, and not at all disposed to make light 
of so impressive a vision, Jesus charged them not 
to mention what had occurred, until after he should 
have risen from the dead. If these things had 
been spread abroad, the mistaken ideas of the 
Messiah, and of himself, which filled the popular 
mind, would only have been confirmed. His three 
disciples obeyed him ; but they wondered, we are 
told, what he could mean by his rising from the 
dead. 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 157 

The grounds upon which, after a careful exami- 
nation of the records, I thus explain what is called 
the Transfiguration, I have stated, imperfectly in- 
deed, but somewhat at length, elsewhere. It is not 
to the purpose of these pages to repeat them here. 
I will only remark, 

Firstly, that the common understanding of the 
Transfiguration appears to be Jewish, and not in 
accordance with the character of Jesus. When he 
is represented as arrayed in an external brightness, 
I detect the working of the Jewish imagination. 
His light was spiritual, not material, inward, not 
outward. It is very natural that Peter, with his 
Jewish ideas and hopes, should see him thus ar- 
rayed, in a dream ; but it is not in keeping with 
his character. The record expressly states that 
Peter, James, and John, were heavy with sleep ; 
and the circumstances are described also as all 
taking place coincidently. 

And, secondly, it is not difficult to see how the 
friends of Jesus were led to mistake the common 
for the extraordinary. It would be by no means 
likely, had such a mistake never occurred. With 
their sense of the marvellous all awakened, as it 
must have been, by the wonderful things they were 
daily witnessing, it would have been strange indeed, 
14 



158 HISTORY OF JESUS, 

not at all in agreement with our common human 
nature, had they not sometimes been disposed to 
find a miracle, where miracle there was none. Let 
me add the expression of my full conviction, that 
any one who will examine with care the accounts 
of the Transfiguration, seeking only to see the event 
as it really was, will not only be satisfied of the 
probability of the foregoing interpretation, but will 
see that it is in thorough accordance with Truth 
and nature. 

When Jesus, with Peter, James, and John, de- 
scended from the mountain, and returned to his other 
disciples, he found them talking and disputing with 
some of the teachers of the Law, and surrounded 
by a great crowd. The people, not knowing where 
he had been, were surprised and rejoiced to see him, 
and ran and saluted him. He inquired what was 
the matter in dispute, and the meaning of the 
crowd. A man came forward and knelt down be- 
fore him, and besought him to take pity on his son ; 
whom he went on to describe as a lunatic, terribly 
afflicted, — subject to violent fits, or spasmodic at- 
tacks, which sometimes threw him into the fire, 
sometimes into the water, accordingly as he hap- 
pened to be near either when seized with these 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 159 

convulsions; and his strength was wasting away, 
1 1 brought him/ said the man, * to thy disciples, but 
they were not able to cure him/ Upon hearing this, 
Jesus could not repress an expression of impatience 
at the want of faith in his disciples and in all 
around him. " faithless and perverse genera- 
tion!'' he exclaimed; "how long shall I be with 
you ? How long shall I endure you ? Bring your 
son to me." And the lunatic was brought forward. 
Agitated by the presence of Jesus, he was seized 
with a fit, and fell down, foaming at the mouth. 
Jesus inquired of the father how long his son had 
been thus afflicted. "From his childhood," the 
father replied; "if thou canst do anything, have 
compassion on us and help us." ' What is this, If 
thou canst V returned Jesus ; * Do you believe. All 
things can be done by him that believes/ " Master, 
I believe," exclaimed the father, with tears; "help 
thou mine unbelief!" Seeing the crowd fast in- 
creasing, Jesus turned to the sufferer, and in a 
tone of resistless command, charged the evil spirit 
to depart, and afflict him no more. At this the 
youth cried out, and, after a violent convulsion, 
fell to the earth lifeless, so that many thought 
that he was dead. But Jesus took him by the 
hand, and he rose up and was well. 



160 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

And when Jesus was alone with his disciples, 
they inquired of him why they were unable to heal 
the man. He told them that it was owing to their 
want of faith. They had been alarmed at the 
appalling appearance of the disease, and lost their 
self-possession, and, of course, the power of faith. 
Faith, their master assured them, was of immense 
power ; nothing was impossible to it. At the same 
time, he admitted that such a frightful and violent 
disease as they had just witnessed, could be subdued 
and expelled only by such a faith as had been 
formed and strengthened by rigid self-discipline, 
prayer and fasting. 

Jesus was at this time in Galilee, where he sought 
to keep retired, and to prepare his disciples for 
the fearful events that would occur at Jerusalem, 
whither he was resolved to go. He went to Caper- 
naum ; and, on the way, he told them that he should 
go to Jerusalem, where he would be betrayed into 
the power of the priests and Pharisees, who would 
kill him ; but he would rise from the dead the third 
day afterwards. His disciples, believing him to be 
the Messiah, could not understand how such things 
could be. They were greatly disturbed, but no one 
dared to ask him for an explanation. 

It seems very probable, after Jesus had spoken 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 161 

so highly of Peter, that this disciple, who seems 
from the first to have assumed the chief place 
among his companions, became rather overbearing, 
and that they were not disposed to recognise his 
pretensions. They got into a dispute, on the 
journey to Capernaum, when they thought they 
were not observed by Jesus. Their reverence for 
him would hardly have allowed them to quarrel in 
his immediate presence, or when his eye was upon 
them. When they arrived at Capernaum, he in- 
quired of them what they had been disputing about. 
At first they held their peace. They were ashamed 
to confess their quarrels. He knew what the 
matter was. He knew the ambitious hopes they 
were cherishing. They were looking for high 
places under him, in the coming kingdom. Hence 
arose jealousies among them. And they betrayed 
the cause of difficulty and dispute, by asking him 
who would be the greatest in the kingdom of 
Heaven. They had their hearts fixed on standing 
near the throne of the Messiah. And their object 
evidently was to ascertain from their master which 
of them should be first. Jesus called a little child 
to him, and took him up in his arms, and then said 
to his disciples standing around, in a manner the 
most emphatic : c Unless you are entirely changed, 
14* 



162 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

unless you relinquish all these jealous and ambitions 
hopes, and become like this child, so far from 
having any rank in the kingdom of Heaven, you 
will not be able so much as to enter it. Whoever 
becomes humble and docile as a child, deeming that 
he knows nothing, ready to be taught all things — 
he is the highest in the great kingdom.' He then 
proceeded to declare, with the same emphasis, that 
uny honor paid to such a childlike follower of his 
would be honor paid to him ; and he warned them 
that any one of them, who misled one of these 
lowly-minded friends of his, and caused him to be 
repelled from the Truth and to go astray, as they, 
the disciples, were in imminent danger of doing, 
by their jealousies and feuds, would so suffer for 
it, that the having a millstone hanged about his 
neck, and being drowned in the depth of the sea, 
would be a better fate. He said that occasions of 
falling away from the Truth would be given by his 
professed disciples — that such things must come ; 
"but woe," said he, "unto him by whom they 
come !" Wherefore he charged them, in the most 
solemn manner, to repress, at all costs, the slightest 
tendencies to evil in themselves ; to pluck out the 
right eye, if, kindled with unhallowed desire, it 
should be leading them into sin, or cut off the right 



HISTORY OP JESUS. 163 

hand, if it were extended to do wrong, rather than, 
by giving way, plunge themselves into a fiery abyss 
of woe. 'Take heed/ said he, 'how you suffer 
yourselves to think lightly of these humble-minded, 
childlike ones. They are most dear to God. Their 
guardian angels are angels of the highest rank in 
Heaven; they are those angels who stand always 
in His presence/ 

There may be guardian angels. It is pleasant to 
think so. But whether there be or not, it is not at 
all the purpose of this passage to teach that there 
are such heavenly ministrants watching over men. 
Jesus obviously meant simply to impress his disci- 
ples with the truth, that those of whom he was 
speaking were very precious in the sight of Heaven. 
In expressing this truth, he used a mode of thought, 
familiar and striking to the Jewish mind. The idea 
of guardian angels was an idea popularly received 
among the Jews. And when, to express a thought 
of his own, Jesus used the language of that idea, 
he did not affect, in the slightest degree, the minds 
of his disciples as to their belief in guardian angels ; 
nor can we infer from this language what he him- 
self thought, as to the existence of angels. To 
illustrate the case by a familiar example : — it is 
common to speak of the insane as lunatic ; but who, 



164 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

by the use of this term, is ever supposed by others, 
or ever supposes himself, to avow his belief that the 
insane are under the influence of the moon, as the 
term, lunatic, implies ? Had this characteristic of 
popular modes of speech been duly considered, 
Jesus would never have had attributed to him 
opinions which belonged, not to him, but to his 
country and his age, and which had become so 
universal long before him, that they had moulded 
the popular language of the time and place ; so that 
any one who thought to be understood, was necessi- 
tated to use that language, without considering 
himself, or being considered by others, as distinctly 
believing what it literally and logically expressed. 

Let me remark, in passing, that here is a most 
important consideration, which, when once fairly ap- 
preciated, will throw great light on the record of the 
words of Jesus ; showing us, for instance, how it is 
that he appears to have given the weight of his 
great authority to the popular idea of demoniacal 
possession. It is only in appearance that he has 
done so. He necessarily used the established 
phraseology of the day, — there was no other, — 
in regard to this point ; and we are not required to 
suppose that he had any thought, one way or an- 
other, as to the nature of diseases. He dealt only 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 165 

with facts, and designated those facts by popular 
terms. The pages of his history throw no direct 
light whatever upon the origin of those diseases 
ascribed, in his day, to evil spirits. We fancy, in 
the pride of science, that we have a wiser philoso- 
phy, but I do not know. 

To return. On the occasion of which we were 
speaking, Jesus went on to admonish his disciples 
of the claims of the lowly. He had come, he said, 
for the sake of those who were wandering like lost 
sheep — to seek and to save the lost. As a man, 
having a hundred sheep, values them all so much, 
that if but one strays, he leaves the ninety and 
nine, and goes after the lost one until he finds it, 
so it is the will of the great Shepherd that not one 
of his flock should wander away forgotten. Since 
the Eternal Father loveth his children thus, it be- 
came the disciples of Jesus to take heed how they 
neglected or despised the humblest of their brothers. 
He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. 

Although, when thus admonished, the disciples 
of Jesus ceased their disputing, yet some heart- 
burnings remained, not wholly allayed. Peter, it 
is probable, had been wounded by the remarks of 
some one of his fellow-disciples, whom he had irri- 
tated by his assuming temper; for he went to 



166 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

Jesus, and asked how often he was bound to for- 
give an offending brother. In reply, Jesus told 
him that he was to forgive without end ; not only 
seven times, as Peter had suggested, but seventy 
times seven ; and then he related one of his striking 
parables, the parable of the servant who had been 
forgiven, but would not forgive. 



CHAPTER VII. 

JESUS PASSES THROUGH SAMARIA — CHILDREN — 
THE RICH YOUTH — THE HOPES OF THE DISCI- 
PLES — JERICHO — THE BLIND MAN — ZACCHEUS 
— THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN — LAZARUS. 

After tarrying for a while in Galilee, endeavor- 
ing to prepare the minds of his disciples for the 
fate which he had resolved to encounter at Jerusa- 
lem, Jesus at length quitted that country for the last 
time, and turned his face towards the capital. He 
did not, however, go directly thither. But he went 
through the towns and villages of Judea, teaching 
and healing in his wonderful way, everywhere at- 
tended by crowds, who made such demands upon 
him, that we can but faintly picture to ourselves the 
labor and fatigue which he must have undergone. 
He was the friend and servant of all, and was 

(167) 



168 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

found again and again among the forsaken and 
outcast. He passed through Samaria, crossed into 
Perea, the country beyond the River Jordan, and 
made every spot he visited holy forever, by the 
immortal lessons which he uttered as he went, and 
by his deeds of power and love. 

He did not now avoid publicity as much as for- 
merly ; but took special means to excite and impress 
the whole country. He sent out a large company, 
seventy of his followers, to announce the coming 
of the divine kingdom. He published no system 
of faith, no formula of doctrine, but relied in un- 
wavering trust upon that good Providence, with 
which he was wholly at one, to furnish him, in its 
own wise and bountiful way, with opportunities of 
delivering the tidings of Everlasting Truth. 

Upon setting out, he sent persons before him, to 
make known his approach and prepare for his re- 
ception. These messengers went into a Samaritan 
village to make ready for him; but the people, 
finding that he was on his way to Jerusalem, and 
that he was going to pass by the sacred mount, 
Gerizim, where alone, as they thought, true worship 
could be rendered, refused to receive him. At this, 
his disciples, James, and the gentle-minded John, 
the favorite of his master, were highly indignant, 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 169 

and proposed that ho should call down fire from 
Heaven, like one of the old prophets, and consume 
them. i You know not what spirit you are breath- 
ing,' replied he ; ' I have come, not to destroy men's 
lives, but to save them.' 

Upon another occasion, John told him that he 
had found a man w T ho undertook to cast out spirits 
and cure the possessed by using the name of Jesus, 
and that he had forbidden him, because he was a 
stranger, who did not keep company with them. 
Jesus told John that he ought not to forbid the 
man; for it was evident that this stranger was 
evidently not an enemy, and must therefore be pre- 
sumed to be a friend. He must have had respect 
for Jesus, or he would not have made such a use of 
his name. 

It is not difficult to see how such a case as this 
happened to occur. The fame of Jesus of Naza- 
reth, the new and mighty teacher, the wonder- 
worker, had spread over the country, far and wide. 
His name had become, in the minds of the multi- 
tude, another name for a new and extraordinary 
authority — a word of magical power. As attempts 
were made to cure the possessed by various forms 
of exorcism, it is natural that the efficacy of the 
name of Jesus should be tried, — as if there were 
15 



170 HISTORY OF JESUS', 

some occult virtue in it ; and it is not unlikely that 
it was used with effect, perhaps with entire success ; 
as those who were suffering under nervous diseases 
may be supposed to have been peculiarly sensitive 
to such an influence* 

At one place, women came, bringing their little 
children to see the wonderful man, and to be noticed 
by him. But the persons about him spoke roughly 
to these women, and bade them take the children 
away, and not trouble him ; he had other and more 
important things to occupy his time and attention. 
But when Jesus saw his disciples sending the little 
ones away, forbidding them to come to him, he was 
"much displeased," and exclaimed, 'let the little 
children come to me, and do not prevent them ; for 
like little children are those who are of the kingdom 
of God.' And he caressed them, taking them up 
in his arms and blessing them ; through them, ren- 
dering all childhood sacred forever, as the type of 
a higher and better condition of being. Every 
bereaved Christian mother now resigns her vanished 
child to the embrace of this comforting benediction. 

At another time, as he was passing along in the 
street or road, a young man, of rank and wealth, 
came running, and knelt down before Jesus, and, 
with a countenance beaming with the ingenuousness 



HISTORY OF JESUS- 171 

of youth, said, " Good master, what shall I do to 
inherit eternal life?" There was that in the man- 
ner of this young man that touched and won the 
heart of Jesus instantly. It was, perhaps, because 
he felt the manifest sincerity of those youthful tones, 
that he was prompted instinctively to repel the 
seductive flattery. "Why callest thou me good," 
he replied; " there is none good but one, God." 
He bade the young man keep the commandments ; 
to which the young man answered that he had kept 
them always, from his childhood. Then Jesus told 
him that, if he would be perfect, he must go and 
dispose of all his wealth among the poor, and come 
and follow him. This was all that was wanting to 
perfect his character. But here was a sacrifice 
which he was unable to make, and he went away 
sad. He was very wealthy. 

As he departed, Jesus turned to his disciples and 
remarked that it was hardly possible for a rich man 
to enter the kingdom of God ; in other words, to 
undertake the service of Truth, which required 
men to renounce wealth, and ease, and friends, as 
Jesus himself had done, for the sake of the divine 
kingdom, and to expose themselves to persecution 
and death. So impressed was he with the difficulty 
which the rich, enervated by the indulgences of 



172 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

wealth, must have in such self-sacrifice, especially 
when a youth, so amiable and so blameless, was 
unequal to it, that he spoke as if it were an absolute 
impossibility for a rich man to enter the divine 
kingdom. Of course, he is not to be taken to the 
letter. Allowance is to be made for the strength 
of the feeling awakened by the case of this young 
man; unexceptionable, to all appearance, and yet 
incapable of the self-renunciation required. If 
such an one could not enter the kingdom of God, 
it seemed impossible that any rich man would — 
that a camel might pass through a needle's eye 
sooner. 

But the disciples, all whose ideas of the coming 
kingdom were identified with wealth and honor, 
were filled with amazement at this declaration of 
their master's ; and they exclaimed, ' Who then can 
be saved?' or, to express the same thing in other 
words, 6 Who then can enter the kingdom of Hea- 
ven V To be saved, in their view, was synonymous 
with being admitted into the Messiah's kingdom. 
Jesus, seeing their perplexity, and knowing that 
the progress of events would enlighten them, simply 
said, 'It may seem impossible to men, but it is 
possible with God to save men, to establish his 
kingdom, even though there should be no rich men 



HISTORY OP JESUS. 173 

in it. The look with which this was said was so 
impressive, that it was remembered, and has been 
recorded. 

It is interesting to mark the natural working of 
Peter's mind on this occasion. He is transparent 
like a child. He betrayed his own art with an art- 
less simplicity. He evidently thought to himself: 
1 This is very strange ; the Messiah coming, the 
kingdom of Heaven to be established, without 
riches ! It is high time to ascertain our position, 
to know what our prospects are — how we are to be 
rewarded for following our master/ And he spoke 
out and said, ' Behold, we have left all and followed 
thee, what are we going to get?' Jesus assured 
him, in reply, most emphatically, that they who 
attended him in the work of reform would be raised 
to great power in the heavenly kingdom, and would 
be made judges of the twelve tribes of Israel, 
seated on thrones. They have indeed been exalted 
to great power. The promise of their master to 
them has been more than fulfilled, for they became 
the apostles of Truth, the teachers of nations. He 
went on to say, that though they had forsaken all, 
yet, for all that that they had given up, they would 
receive a hundredfold, and enter upon ever-enduring 
life. 

15* 



174 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

Perceiving that Peter and the rest imagined that 
they had secured some peculiar advantage by having 
been the first to attach themselves to him, Jesus 
added, 'But many that are first will be last, and 
the last will be first.' And then he illustrated 
this declaration, by relating a story of a man who 
went out at different hours of the day to hire 
laborers to work in his vineyard ; and at the close 
of the day paid those who had worked only one 
hour, but who would gladly have worked longer, 
had they been hired earlier, the same as the rest ; 
and when those who had labored all day complained 
because they received no more than those who had 
labored only an hour, their employer reminded them 
that they had received all that they bargained for, 
and that it was not for them to find fault with him, 
if he chose to give just as much to others, who 
would have been willing to work all day at the 
same rate had any one hired them. 

By this parable, Jesus evidently meant to admon- 
ish Peter that he had no reason to expect any 
special advantages merely because, — not through 
any merit of his, but in the providence of Heaven, 
— he had been called among the first to labor in 
the vineyard of Truth; that others would come 
after him, as well disposed as he, who would be 



HISTORY OF JESUS* 175 

equally compensated, and whose late coming would 
be owing to no fault of theirs. Many, called first, 
would disregard the call, and be among the last ; 
and many, called at a late period, would be among 
the first. Many were called, but only a few really 
chosen; — the statement of a simple fact. How 
few of the vast multitudes whom Jesus himself in- 
vited to the service of Truth, did really enter it, 
and prove themselves to be chosen ! How few are 
there, of the multitudes whom the Truth is now 
inviting, who accept the invitation with undivided 
hearts ! 

On one occasion, he was asked whether there 
were few or many to be admitted into the divine 
kingdom. He replied to this question, by warning 
those around him to take care and use their utmost 
endeavors to enter at the narrow gate ; for many 
would think to enter in, and would not be able. 
The Jews at large expected to be admitted into the 
promised state ; which is spoken of here and else- 
where as a glorious palace and a grand festival, at 
which the good and great of past times, saints and 
patriarchs, are present ; and Jesus admonished his 
countrymen that it required the greatest pains on 
their part, as the gate was small, and difficult of 
access and entrance, and they might miss it ; and, 



176 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

besides, the opportunity of finding it would soon be 
past. The master of the entertainment would rise 
and close the door, and to all the entreaties of those 
seeking admission would reply : i I know not who 
you are/ Of the truth of his words, the then 
state of things was an illustration. How few were 
in the straight and narrow way ! 

He counselled the people, at the same time, not 
to despair of the coming of the kingdom, bidding 
them to look and pray for it without ceasing. In 
this connection, he related the parable of the un- 
principled judge, who yielded to the entreaties of a 
poor widow for justice, simply because she impor- 
tuned him. If a man then, with no principle of 
humanity or religion, could thus be induced to grant 
justice, would God be regardless of the prayers of 
his children for light and life ? Most certainly he 
would answer the desire of their hearts. Neverthe- 
less, asked Jesus, when the Messiah comes, will he 
find people ready to receive him ? ' Will he find 
faith on the earth V 

While thus travelling about, with the probable 
design of reaching Jerusalem about the time of the 
Passover, Jesus kept reminding his disciples of his 
death, which was there to take place. He saw 
that, as he was faithful to the Truth, he must die 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 177 

in its service, and he chose his own time and place. 
But it was impossible for them to connect ideas of 
shame and violence with the glorious person of the 
Messiah; and I suppose that what their master 
told them of the events to occur at Jerusalem had 
no effect upon their minds, except to disturb them. 
They could not comprehend how he who was to 
reign a thousand years should suffer so. They dis- 
missed the thought as soon as it was suggested, and 
turned with delight to their radiant visions. 

Two of them induced their mother to beg from 
Jesus a promise that, when he began his glorious 
reign, they should sit on the right and on the left 
of his throne, and so occupy the highest places. 
Jesus told them they did not know what they were 
asking. " Can you be baptized with the baptism 
that I am baptized with? Can you drink of the 
cup that I shall drink of?" In other words, ' Can 
you go through such a flood of suffering as I am 
going through ? Can you drink of the bitter cup 
of trial with me?' How clearly does it appear 
from these words, that the power which Jesus was 
thinking of was a power to be obtained through 
suffering; — moral, not political power. The two 
disciples had no idea of his meaning, and they un- 
thinkingly replied, that they were able, ' Yes, you 



178 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

will indeed go through the same baptism, and drink 
of the same cup with me/ said Jesus ; ' but still, to 
sit on my right hand and on my left can be given 
only to those who may be found qualified therefor, 
in the providence of my Father/ It was not a 
matter of arbitrary appointment. They would rise 
to high places in the kingdom, who should be found 
worthy. 

When the other disciples discovered that the two 
brothers had been attempting to anticipate and 
forestall them, they were very angry. And then 
Jesus gave them that definition of true power, 
which, were it the only one of his sayings that had 
come down to us, would be recorded among the 
deathless words of ancient wisdom. He makes a 
wide distinction between greatness, commonly so 
regarded, and true greatness. ' The kings of the 
earth,' he said to his disciples, ' exercise power; but 
it is not power like theirs that you are to exercise, 
but whosoever seeks to be greatest among you, let 
him be the servant of the rest ; even as I have 
come, not to be served, but to serve ; to give up 
everything, my very life, in the service, not of one 
or of a few, but of many.' 

As he approached Jerusalem, he visited Jericho, 
which place is rendered memorable by two incidents 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 179 

that occurred there. In the neighborhood of this 
city there sate a blind beggar, who, as his name, 
Bartimeus, is given, appears to have been widely 
known. He was, I suppose, a familiar object, a 
melancholy fixture, seated there, at some prominent 
point on the highway; and familiarity with the 
sight had blunted the popular mind to a sense of 
his wretchedness. The people had got accustomed 
to his ancient misery, and imagined that he was 
used to it himself, and that if an alms was thrown 
to him occasionally, it was all he could expect. 
The quick ear of the blind man caught the sound 
of an unusual noise, of many voices and many feet. 
He asked what was the matter ; and was told that 
Jesus of Nazareth, of whom he had heard as the 
mighty teacher, the healer of the sick, the restorer 
of sight to the blind, was passing by ; and instantly 
the blind man began to shout with all his strength, 
addressing Jesus by one of the titles of the Mes- 
siah, — i Son of David, have pity on me V The 
people, as they passed, bade him hush, and not 
suppose that he would be taken notice of. But he 
minded not what was said to him, but kept calling 
out, ' Son of David, have pity on me V It was, he 
felt, his last chance. He had no one to lead him 
to the great wonder-worker, who, he had no doubt, 



180 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

must be the Messiah ; for he had restored sight to 
the blind. That was proof sufficient to a blind man. 
Jesus heard his cry. It reached an ear ever listen- 
ing for the wail of human suffering ; and he paused, 
and bade the blind man to be brought to him. Then 
eager hands were extended to obey his bidding, 
and lead the beggar to him. The beggar leaped 
with joy, and left his ragged mantle behind him. 
' What do you want of me ?' asked Jesus. ' Mas- 
ter/ gasped the beggar, rolling his sightless orbs, 
all in a tremor of faith and hope, 'I want my 
sight !' And Jesus touched his eyes, and said, 
' According to your faith, be it done unto you.' 
And immediately his sight came to him again, and 
a cry of wonder and delight went up from the 
crowd. 

On a former occasion, when a blind man was 
brought to him, Jesus took him apart — led him 
out of the town; and when he had anointed his 
eyes with saliva, he asked him if he could see. The 
man said he could see men walking at a distance, 
but could distinguish them from the trees only by 
their motion. Jesus then put his hands again upon 
the man's eyes, and he saw distinctly. The parti- 
culars of this, as of most of the incidents that 
make up the accounts of Jesus, are very briefly 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 181 

told. In this instance, we may believe that he used 
this peculiar means, putting saliva on the blind man's 
eyes, not because there was any medical virtue in 
it, but simply to form a communication between 
himself and the man, to express his will to him ; for, 
as the power of vision, and of all the bodily func- 
tions, resides, not in the body, but in the mind, so 
it was to the mind, to the intellectual, conscious 
nature, that Jesus addressed himself when the dis- 
orders of the body were to be corrected. So again, 
when he restored hearing to a deaf man, who had 
also an impediment in his speech, Jesus wet his 
fingers, and put them in the man's ears, and touched 
his tongue, and looked up to Heaven, and sighed, 
or drew a long inhalation ; by which simple means, 
as the man was deaf, and could have had his faith 
in Jesus awakened by nothing he had heard, Jesus 
communicated his will to the man, made him under- 
stand his purpose, and so stimulated the man's will, 
the hidden spring of vitality and cure, and thus 
caused him to co-operate with the power of Jesus 
himself, in effecting the cure. But to return. 

He entered Jericho accompanied by an immense 

throng. The crowd was so great, that a certain 

tax-gatherer, named Zaccheus, a man of diminutive 

stature, and on this account, I suppose, as well as 

16 



182 HISTORY OF JESUS, 

on account of his office, an object of public con- 
tempt and derision, ran and climbed up into a tree, 
to get sight of Jesus as he passed. When Jesus 
reached the tree he looked up and saw ZaccheuSy 
and bade him come down, for he was going to 
take up his abode at his house. Zaccheus, of whom 
Jesus appears to have had some knowledge, de- 
scended with alacrity, delighted at the idea of being 
honored by such a guest. Among the crowd were 
many people of standing and respectability, drawn 
to the spot by curiosity ; and when they witnessed 
this incident, they expressed their surprise at the 
selection, out of all that multitude, of such a host. 
I suppose only the meanest of the people would 
enter the house of a publican. But what took 
place there shows that Zaccheus was worthy of the 
honor that was done him ; for he stood up and said : 
" Behold ! Master, the half of my goods I give to 
the poor ; and if I have wronged any man in any- 
thing, I restore him fourfold." And Jesus said, 
" This day is salvation come to this house/ ' 

As Jesus drew near to Jerusalem, and the crowd 
increased, and the excitement spread, and he no 
longer sought to allay it by withdrawing himself 
from public notice, as he had been wont to do at an 
earlier period, the idea went abroad among the 



HISTORY OF JESUS, 183 

multitude, that something great and wonderful was 
about to happen, that the kingdom of Heaven 
would shortly appear. And then it was that he 
told the parable of the Talents ; which, being 
interpreted, asserts the eternal law, whereby men 
are rewarded according to the use made of the 
power originally given them; and, rightly under- 
stood, it admonished the people that their admis- 
sion to the coming kingdom would be regulated 
by this law. In various teachings and parables, 
he cautioned the crowds that gathered round him 
to take care and watch with their utmost attention ; 
for, much as they expected the Messiah, he would 
appear at a moment when they were not looking 
for him, and woe unto them, if he should find them 
unprepared! To this point looks the parable of 
the Ten Virgins. He told the people that when 
that event should come, which they were so eagerly 
expecting, when the Messiah should be seated on 
his throne, and all nations be brought under his 
sway, in other words, when the new era, the next 
age, should begin, men would be rewarded or pun- 
ished, not as Jews and Gentiles, but as they were 
merciful or unjust; that the true heirs of the 
heavenly kingdom would be, not the descendants 
of Abraham, but those who had abounded in the 
15* 



184 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

offices of humanity, who had done good to the 
least and most despised of mankind. By these 
instructions, he took the weak and the wronged 
under his special protection; and has, in the 
directest manner, taught us, of this remote day, as 
we would honor the highest, to be considerate of 
the lowest; declaring that he would account any 
neglect of the humble as a neglect of himself per- 
sonally, and any concern shown for the poor and 
injured, as an honor done to him. 

It may have been at Jericho, which was situated 
near the northern boundary of Judea, or rather, 
perhaps, at some place nearer Jerusalem, that Jesus 
received a message from the sisters of Lazarus, 
informing him that his friend, their brother, was 
sick. It is not at all probable that this was all the 
intelligence that they sent him, or that it was re- 
ceived by him without any inquiry of the messenger 
as to the particulars of the illness of his friend. 
It is only natural to suppose that Jesus learned 
enough from the messenger to satisfy him that 
Lazarus was at the point of death. He did not, 
however, immediately go to Bethany, as Martha 
and Mary, no doubt, fondly expected; but, declar- 
ing that it was rather the glory of God than death 
which would be the end of this sickness, he continued 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 185 

two days longer in the place where he was. After 
that, he proposed to his disciples to go into Judea. 
And when they expressed surprise at the thought 
of his going so near Jerusalem, where, on his last 
visit to that place, some persons had been on the 
point of stoning him, he said that he must avail 
himself of the light of day while it lasted ; inti- 
mating, I think, that his opportunities were drawing 
to a close, and that the night was at hand. He 
then said that their friend Lazarus was sleeping, 
and that he would go and awaken him. Their 
reply to this remark appears to indicate that they 
knew that Lazarus was very ill, and in all proba- 
bility was now dead. "If he sleep," said they, 
"he will do well.' , Jesus, so John tells us, meant 
that Lazarus was dead. And when he found that 
they did not understand him, he said plainly that 
Lazarus was dead, and that he was glad that he 
was not there to heal him, in order that their faith 
might receive new and greater confirmation. 

When it became apparent that it was the purpose 
of their master to go to Bethany, and expose him- 
self to the violence of his enemies, ' Let us also go,' 
said one of the disciples, ' that we may die with 
him ;' thus giving utterance to that strong personal 
affection, which had grown up almost unconsciously 
16* 



186 HISTORY OF JESUS, 

in their bosoms, and which now led them to con- 
template a fate utterly inconsistent with their long- 
cherished expectations. 

When they reached Bethany, they found that 
Lazarus had been buried four days. Martha and 
Mary were surrounded by friends from Jerusalem, 
who had come to condole with them. Martha, as 
we may judge from the few but characteristic 
glimpses that we catch of her, was engaged in the 
active cares of the household, and she naturally 
received the first intelligence of the approach of 
Jesus. The delay in his coming they had found it 
difficult, I suppose, to reconcile with his love for 
their brother. Again and again must the sisters 
have said to themselves and to one another, i If the 
master were only here, Lazarus might be restored.' 
The same thought burst from the lips of Martha, as 
soon as she saw Jesus : " Master, if thou hadst been 
here, my brother had not died ; but I know that 
even now whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God 
will give it thee." In so saying, she appears to 
have meant that Jesus might, even then, restore 
her brother ; but when Jesus told her, in so many 
words, that her brother should rise again, the idea 
seems to have been too much for her ; and she fell 
back upon her faith in the final rising of the dead, 



HISTORY OF JESTTS. 187 

and said, " I know that he will rise again in the 
resurrection at the last day." Jesus said to her, 
" I am the resurrection and the life : he that be- 
lieveth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he 
live ; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me will 
never die. Believest thou this ?" 

Jesus has been understood as if he intended, in 
these remarkable words, to state a universal truth, 
or general doctrine. Undoubtedly, a universal 
truth is deducible from these words : and they have 
the form of general propositions. But we must 
remember that both Jesus and Martha were en- 
grossed with one thought, the idea of Lazarus ; and 
that nothing is more natural than to express strong 
emotion or deep conviction, in general terms. Al- 
though, at first sight, Jesus appears to state general 
propositions, yet I conceive that he intended to be 
understood, and that he was understood by Martha, 
precisely as if he had said, i I give life, I will raise 
your dead brother. Though he is dead, yet he 
believed in me, and he will come to life again ; and 
you who are alive and believe in me, will never die. 
Bo you believe what I say?' Martha answered in 
the affirmative ; but it is evident that his sayings 
were too great for her — that she was staggered ; 
for again she retreated upon her settled belief in 



188 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

Jesus, as the Christ, the Son of God, who was to 
come into the world. She was not equal to the 
great thoughts which he uttered. They startled 
and confounded her matter-of-fact mind ; and, un- 
able to sustain the conversation, and aware that 
Mary should hear these things, she retired to call 
her sister, who was secluded in the house, sur- 
rounded by her friends, and to whom she whispered 
that Jesus had come, and wished to see her. Mary 
arose hastily, and accompanied her sister, without 
saying a word. Her friends, supposing that she 
was going to visit the grave of her brother, followed 
her. When she reached the spot where Jesus was, 
and where Martha had left him, outside the village, 
she fell down at his feet, and bursting into tears, 
said, as Martha had done, " Master, if thou hadst 
been here, my brother had not died." And her 
friends, who had followed her, wept also. 

This scene of sorrow — what a chord must it have 
struck in the bosom of Jesus ! Well do we read that 
he sighed deeply and was overcome at the sight of 
all this mourning. He was then in mortal peril 
himself. He accounted himself doomed to death. 
In a few days, he was himself to die under the most 
appalling circumstances. There was no one to 
sympathize with him, and, by sympathy, to lighten 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 189 

the weight which was pressing with increasing force 
on his heart. Had he been, on this occasion, only 
momentarily affected, we might suppose that he 
was moved to grief only by sympathy with the 
grief that he was witnessing. But he knew his 
own purpose of restoring Lazarus to life, and he 
knew, of course, that these mourners would soon be 
overpowered with rapturous joy. And though he 
knew this, his sadness continued. He wept. He 
asked where they had laid Lazarus. They invited 
him to visit the grave. And the persons present 
wondered to see him weep, and thought how he 
must have loved the dead man, and that it was 
strange that he, who had given sight to the blind, 
had not saved Lazarus from dying. Again he 
sighed deeply, when they came to the grave. 

What a profound sorrow must that have been, 
from which the prospect of performing a mighty 
miracle, a miracle that would fill all the beholders 
with speechless wonder, could not divert him ! May 
we presume to interpret that sorrow, and reverently 
conjecture what was passing in his mind, as, sur- 
rounded by that weeping company, he was going to 
visit a grave? Bound to his fellow-men by the 
strongest sympathies, he was separated from them 
all. None understood him. He had no one to 



190 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

share either his deepest sorrows or his highest joys. 
Peculiarly formed to sympathize and to be sympa- 
thized with, yet, as to those things which lay nearest 
his heart, he was denied all the support and consola- 
tion which human hearts could have given him. He 
was alone in the world. The tokens of sorrow and 
death that now surrounded him, the sight of a 
grave, — with what fearful distinctness must they 
have brought up before him that terrible fate, that 
was now close at hand ; a fate, to all human seem- 
ing, so dark, that it might well appal the stoutest 
heart ! The very tenderness of nature that prompt- 
ed him to pour out his whole soul for ignorant, 
misguided and degraded men, that nerved him, 
for the sake of doing good, to encounter death in 
any, the most frightful form, in which it might 
come — the very sensibility that enabled him to 
appreciate the sufferings of others, rendered him 
tenderly alive to his own solitary situation. Cher- 
ishing godlike purposes of good to every soul of 
man, living only to do good to all, he saw that he 
was soon to die a death of excruciating torture, 
misrepresented, reviled, and really understood by 
none. 

But not only was he without the consolation of 
immediate human fellowship, — where in the past 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 191 

could he find any support of this kind? There 
had not any gone before him, with whom he might 
associate himself in imagination, as every sufferer 
for Truth's sake may now associate himself with 
Jesus, and find strength in communion with beings 
like himself. He had risen to a height of Truth 
and Love, not in speculation merely, but in his 
actual life, whither no one had preceded him. To 
the highest and dearest purposes of his being he 
was here in the boundless universe with God, and 
there was no other. His position was without pre* 
cedent. And the only support he had was that 
which did indeed support him, faith in the Invisible 
Spirit, the Everlasting Father ; that greatest faith, 
which the highest intelligences can entertain ; that 
faith which, simple and universal as it may be, in 
one form or another, is nevertheless so ethereal, 
that it requires the greatest elevation of mind, the 
regeneration of one's whole being, in order to seize 
it, to keep it, to make it palpable to the heart, — a 
full and sufficing spring of strength amidst the un- 
tried emergencies of being. This faith in God did 
sustain the man of Nazareth, as I have said. It 
bore him triumphantly on to the end, and changed 
the vile cross on which he died, into the most 
glorious symbol of power that the world has ever 



192 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

known, and made him the guiding star of nations. 
But what a great nature does it imply in him, that 
he was able, under such circumstances, to be sus- 
tained in a way so purely spiritual ! 

Still, his human affections were not annihilated. 
They were not weakened even. They were only 
refined ; made stronger, more susceptible. And how 
could it be, but that he should be painfully aware 
of the absence of those supports which his very 
nature craved? As he approached the close of 
his life, which was to terminate amidst agony and 
scorn, I cannot wonder that the gloomy prospect 
should have so engrossed him, as to connect itself 
with almost every incident that occurred. I should 
rather wonder, had it been otherwise. When I 
endeavor to image to myself the appearance of 
Jesus at the grave of Lazarus, and see those tears 
falling, and hear those heavy sighs, and trace them 
to the sense of his own desolation, awakened in 
him by the signs of sorrow and death around him, 
I have his nature and my own revealed to me. I 
enter into his heart, or he enters into mine. I un- 
derstand him better, through one and the same 
nature, common to us all. I see that he is related 
to me by a most sacred and intimate tie. This 
view of the melancholy of Jesus at the grave of 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 193 

Lazarus creates in us a conviction, not only of his 
reality, but of his near relationship to us all. We 
are brought into communion with him ; and if with 
him, then with all the Truth and Goodness which 
were the being of his being. 

Let it not be said that this representation of the 
case implies that he was overcome by a selfish 
sorrow. Had he been insensible to the fate that 
he saw awaited him, to the isolation in which he 
lived and was about to die, it would have evinced, 
not a generous, but a hard, insensible nature. As 
it was, there is revealed in him simply a tender, 
human nature. Why did he long so for human 
sympathy, that he wept and groaned as he thought 
how it was utterly denied him? It was dear to 
him, because he desired nothing more earnestly 
than to communicate to others the unspeakable 
good which he possessed himself. Why did he 
love his fellow-men, but that he longed that they 
should be at one with him, as he was one with the 
eternally Good and True ? He knew what was in 
men. Through all the scars and defacements of 
moral evil, he beheld in them angelic natures, 
power to receive all that he had received; and 
therefore he groaned and wept, when he felt that 
in a world of such beings he was all alone, and 
17 



194 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

that he was about to be driven out of life with 
shame and violence. 

To perceive that his melancholy was untainted 
by selfishness, consider that, when he was thus de- 
pressed, he had it in mind to summon the dead 
man from the mysterious sleep of the grave — to do 
a work which would make the eyes of all present 
dilate with inexpressible wonder, and their hearts 
beat with a new and wild joy. Had his tears been 
selfish, would they not, as he approached the grave, 
have ceased to flow, in the prospect of producing 
so grand an effect, and of attracting to himself the 
reverent gaze of men ? The thought of what was 
impending over him would have been superseded 
for awhile by the absorbing interest of the act he 
was about to perform. The glorious brightness of 
the present moment would have concealed, for a 
brief interval, at least, the darkness of the coming 
hour. 

This, this is the great circumstance, the signet of 
his truth : the godlike self-forgetfulness with which 
he wrought the restoration of Lazarus. This suf- 
fices to satisfy me that the miracle was wrought. 
Wonderful as the event was, transcending, as it 
confessedly does, all the limits of our experience, 
still, no one can pronounce it an impossibility, in 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 195 

the nature of things. No one can say that there 
are not laws in nature by which such an effect 
might be produced; for who knows? Have we 
not had facts enough, of late, which have compelled 
the most incredulous to admit this much, at least : 
that there are laws of nature, of our own nature, 
indeed, mysterious in their operation, which have 
been hardly dreamed of by our profoundest science ? 
But, be this as it may, the great wonder in the 
account of the raising of Lazarus, the miracle of 
the miracle, is, in my apprehension, not the appear- 
ance of Lazarus at the mouth of the tomb, stagger- 
ing in the grave-clothes, in which he was wrapped 
head and foot — not there does the special wonder 
of the thing break upon my sight. But it is Jesus 
himself who fascinates my gaze ; and in those eyes, 
yet glistening with those immortal tears, in that 
bosom, which has scarcely yet ceased heaving with 
the unutterable groans of our common humanity, 
in the sublime self-forgetfulness with which he 
breaks the slumber of the dead, in the entire ab- 
sence of everything like self-elation, in the simple, 
unborrowed majesty, with which the thing is done, 
I behold incarnated the purest spirit of the very 
same power which is working miracles just as real, 
only, alas ! for our blindness, more familiar, at this 



196 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

very moment, and at all moments, all around and 
within us. I see God, the very same God, who is 
working everywhere in this boundless universe, that 
stretches and towers so grandly all about us, — I 
see him as truly, nay, even more fully, in Jesus at 
the grave of Lazarus, than anywhere else within 
the sphere of my vision ; or, if the phrase is pre- 
ferred, I see Nature, in its inimitable simplicity and 
power, as clearly as I see it in anything that exists. 
And, seeing God in the godlike spirit of Jesus, I 
cannot wonder that he tha,t was dead came forth. 
The wonder would have been, had he not come 
forth ; for when Nature commands, when the omni- 
potent God speaks, his voice must be obeyed. 

Let not the story of Lazarus, then, be accounted 
a fiction. Show me first the man that is able to 
conceive of a new substance, a new plant, a new 
particle of the vilest dust, having no prototype in 
any previously-existing atom of matter; and then 
I may begin to doubt the truth of this account. I 
could just as easily believe in the ability of the 
human mind to imagine a new animal, which, while 
it should be, in all its habits and structure, an 
original creation, different from all other animals, 
should yet harmonize with all, and with all nature, 
as I could in the power of any mind, however in- 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 19T 

genious, to represent such an act as the raising 
of Lazarus, at once so thoroughly original, and 
so thoroughly natural, if that act were not real. 
How much more apparent becomes the impossibility 
of such a fiction, when we consider the whole 
character of Jesus, on the one hand, and see, as 
we may, how, from those brief and careless records, 
we may gather the idea of a being, complete, and 
in keeping with himself and with all things, and 
not only so, but a new illustration of the truth of 
nature ; and, on the other hand, the character of 
the age and people, uncultured and superstitious, 
among whom he appeared. That there may be a 
mixture of the fabulous in the history of Jesus, I 
do not deny, I admit to a certain extent. It would 
be strange, were it not so. But still, that the 
story, substantially, in regard to all the principal 
facts, should be fictitious, is just as impossible as 
that we should be able to imagine a new creature. 

But I have wandered far. We left Jesus and 
the mourning company at the grave of Lazarus. 
It was a cave closed with a great stone. Jesus 
directed the stone to be removed. Martha, consti- 
tutionally incapable of that profound reverence 
which characterized her sister, and which forbade 
Mary to question the propriety of anything he 
17* 



198 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

might do, interfered, suggesting that as Lazarus 
had been so long buried, the corpse must be offen- 
sive. 'Have I not told you,' said Jesus to her, 
' that if you would believe, you should witness the 
glorious power of Grod?' And then he raised his 
eyes to Heaven, and said, "Father, I thank thee 
that thou hast heard me, and I know that thou 
hearest me always, but, for the sake of these who 
are standing here I thank thee, that they may 
believe that thou hast sent me." And when he 
had so said, he called out with a loud voice, " Laza- 
rus ! come forth ! And he that was dead came 
forth, bound hand and foot with grave-clothes, and 
his face was bound about with a cloth." At the 
apparition of the dead man at the mouth of the 
sepulchre, struggling, in the ample folds of his 
shroud, to get free, the people stood transfixed with 
amazement and fear. Jesus recalled them to their 
senses, by calmly bidding them go to the assistance 
of Lazarus, and unloosen the grave-clothes, and set 
him free. 

Lazarus had fallen asleep in Jesus, and with the 
image of his venerated friend cherished in the in- 
nermost shrine of his life. He had died with that 
living principle of faithful affection in his heart, 
which is out of the reach of all physical changes. 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 199 

He was in close and vital sympathy with Jesus. 
We know nothing of death, except in its effect on 
the body. We can mark the instant the physical 
functions cease. But we do not know at all how 
death affects the intellectual being; whether the 
connection of that with the body is severed irrevo- 
cably when the heart ceases to beat, or whether the 
interior life retires gradually from its fellowship 
with the physical frame. 

Believing the resurrection of Lazarus to be a 
fact, I infer from it that the connection of the 'body 
and the mind is not so entirely and instantaneously 
destroyed by what we pronounce death, but that, 
under such conditions as were fulfilled in the case 
of Jesus and Lazarus, the mind may be remanded, 
some days after death has occurred, to reanimate 
the lifeless body. Lazarus had sunk into the last 
sleep with that confidence in his revered friend, by 
which Jesus himself had just said that, though he 
were dead, he should yet live again ; and which 
caused the loud command of that beloved voice to 
reach Lazarus, asleep in death, and be heard by 
him and obeyed. And it was on account of this 
faith in him, which Lazarus cherished, that Jesus 
thanked God that He had heard him. It certainly 
was not merely for the opportunity of raising a dead 



200 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

man that lie gave thanks. If he had sought such 
an opportunity, he could have had it at any time. 
But, as I conceive, he rejoiced that, in God's 
good providence, the dead man was one who had 
died in faith, and whose faith rendered it possible 
for him to be heard and obeyed, even in the realms 
of death. Jesus was always praying for oppor- 
tunities to manifest and deepen the force of Truth ; 
and now an occasion had come, when the Truth 
could be illustrated by the power of a faith which 
had Truth for its object and end; and not mere 
power, but the power of faith, would be seen ; and 
for this he thanked Heaven. 

It may be asked how this explanation meets the 
other cases of the raising of the dead. Jesus 
raised two others. There is no mention of any 
faith which they cherished in him. No, but they 
were both young persons ; one was a little girl of 
twelve years of age, and the other is represented 
as a young man. How young we do not know. 
But we know this, that Jesus spoke in a peculiar 
manner of the young ; describing little children as 
the representatives of the kingdom of God; and 
his words were never without meaning. Between 
him and the young, then, there was a living sym- 
pathy. They were in the same sphere. They 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 201 

were related to one another by indestructible ties. 
And we may believe that the widow's son, whom he 
recalled to life, was neither so old, nor yet, before 
he died, buried so deeply under the materializing 
influences of the world, nor, when Jesus met his 
bier, so long dead, but that the voice of Jesus, 
expressive of the mighty power of faith, could reach 
him and summon him back. 

In all these cases, let it be considered that Jesus 
spoke to the dead. He called to them, and they 
awoke. Now let it be, after all that has been sug- 
gested, that we cannot form the slightest shadow 
of a conjecture as to the manner in which they 
were restored to life, nevertheless my reverence for 
the singleness of his character utterly forbids me 
to consider him as speaking, and speaking, too, so 
earnestly and authoritatively as he did, when he 
commanded the dead to live again, if he did not 
know that he would be heard. He spoke then, as 
always, in perfect good faith ; and although we may 
be entirely at a loss to conceive how the dead could 
hear, yet I must believe that they did hear him, 
and that the word of authority which he spake to 
the dead, brief as it was, was the true expression 
of the power by which the mighty wonder was 
wrought, and not a mere show or magical formula. 



202 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

having no natural, but only an arbitrary connection 
with the efficient cause of these miracles. 

The voice of Jesus ! It penetrated the grave. 
It is sounding through the ages, speaking the 
Everlasting Gospel of Truth, awakening the Divine 
Life within us ; now wrapped all around with the 
shroud of death, and slumbering in the grave. He 
calls it to come forth, and he commands it to be 
set free. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

A COUNCIL OF THE PRIESTS — JESUS AT BETHANY 

— MARY — PUBLIC ENTRANCE INTO JERUSALEM 

— GREEKS — PHARISEES — THE LAST SUPPER 

JUDAS — CONSOLATIONS — PRAYER. 

Many of the friends of Martha and Mary, who 
had come from Jerusalem to visit them, and who 
were present at the grave of Lazarus, impressed by 
the mighty wonder, avowed their belief that Jesus 
was true, and from God. But some of them re- 
turned to the city, and informed the leading Phari- 
sees of what had taken place. 

The Pharisees and the priests met in council, to 
consider what was to be done. The popularity of 
Jesus, and the impression made by the wonders he 
was working, excited the greatest alarm, lest he 
should carry the mass of the people with him, and 

(208) 



204 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

provoke the jealous power of Rome to exterminate 
the whole nation. Not all the members of the 
council, however, were hostile to Jesus. Some, we 
may suppose, were for moderate measures, and some 
for doing nothing. But the chief priest overruled 
all opposition, and brought the assembly to a deci- 
sion, by insisting that Jesus should be put to death ; 
that one man should die to save the whole na- 
tion. 

John, who tells us of this council, struck with 
the coincidence between the opinion expressed by 
Caiaphas, and the actual fact, that Jesus did sacrifice 
himself for the sake of the people, has represented 
the priest as unconsciously speaking in the pro- 
phetic spirit of his sacred office. 

These powerful enemies of Jesus resolved that 
he should be arrested the first opportunity that 
offered, and be put to death. They did not dare to 
lay hands upon him in public, and in open daylight, 
for fear of a popular tumult ; and had it not been 
for the treachery of one of his disciples, a much 
longer time might have elapsed before the person 
of Jesus would have been secured. 

Knowing the deadly enmity he had excited, and 
the power of his enemies, he avoided showing him- 
self in public. He retired for a little while, with 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 205 

his disciples, from the neighborhood of Jerusalem, 
and waited for the festival of the Passover. 

What with the impatient enthusiasm of those 
who favored him, on the one hand, and the fierce 
hostility of the priests and Pharisees, on the other, 
his position was full of difficulty and peril. He 
saw, with all his wisdom, and even because of his 
wisdom, that he could not long continue the work 
of Truth and Beneficence in which he was engaged, 
without coming to an issue fatal to his own life ; 
and he appears to have resolved that his career 
should terminate only under such circumstances as 
would give the greatest possible publicity and effect 
to Truth and to his labors. Through his extraor- 
dinary insight, he saw clearly that, so far from 
being defeated by death, he would give a new and 
commanding authority to the words that he had 
spoken, and to the life he had led, by dying as he 
was about to do. He saw and he declared that the 
fate he was to undergo would seal his triumph for- 
ever. 

It was the custom of the people to resort to Jeru- 
salem some days before the Passover, to prepare 
themselves, by religious rites, for a due observance 
of that great occasion. Numbers had gathered at 
the capital from the country, with this design ; and 
18 



206 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

a good deal of curiosity was expressed as to whether 
they might look for Jesus. It was known that the 
religious authorities had determined to arrest him, 
and therefore people wondered whether he would 
make his appearance. 

About a week before the Feast, he visited his 
friends in Bethany, which was only a few miles 
distant from Jerusalem. He was there hospitably 
entertained. A supper was made for him. "While 
at supper, Mary, the sister of Lazarus, who appears 
to have regarded Jesus with such reverence, that, 
when he visited them, she was wont to take her 
place at his feet, listening to every word that he 
said, forgetful of all else, and to the annoyance of 
her active sister, Martha, who immediately set 
about the offices of hospitality, on this occasion 
brought an alabaster box of very costly ointment, 
so rich that the odor of it filled the whole house, 
and broke it, and poured it upon his head. This 
she did merely to express her reverence for him. 
But one of his chosen disciples, the unhappy victim 
and slave of avarice, was angry at such a waste, 
and hid his meanness under a pretence of concern 
for the poor ; to whose relief, the ointment, as he 
said, had it been sold, might have been better ap- 
propriated. There can be no doubt that the pene- 



HISTORY OF JESUS, 207 

trating eye of Jesus saw clearly into the heart of 
Judas, and he knew the evil passion by which he 
was actuated, and what would be its fruits. He 
said nothing, however, in condemnation of his false 
disciple, but only defended the act of Mary. He 
appreciated the sentiment of respect and affection 
by which she was prompted. But, at the same 
time, there was continually present to his mind, his 
near and melancholy fate. And the ointment, of a 
kind so costly as was, I suppose, rarely used for 
the living, but most often reserved for the dead, 
had to him the odor of death. It smelt to him of 
the tomb ; and it was as if Mary were embalming 
him, preparing him for the grave, which he knew 
was now very near. 'Let her alone,' said he; 
6 against the day of my burial hath she kept this. 
For the poor you always have with you, you will 
always have opportunities of testifying your sym- 
pathy with them ; but you will not always have me 
here ; soon you will have no opportunity of showing 
me any regard.' The allusion to his approaching 
death is slight, but it is full of significance. 

Judas, blinded by the insane love of money, and 
enraged that Jesus should have countenanced this 
waste, began from this time to meditate treachery. 
Acquainted with all the places which his master 



208 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

was wont to frequent, he sought an interview with 
the priests, with whom he bargained his services 
for gold. 

As soon as it was known in the city, that Jesus 
was at Bethany, crowds went thither from Jerusa- 
lem, to see, not only Jesus, but Lazarus also ; and 
those who saw Lazarus, and became acquainted 
with the circumstances of his restoration to life, 
were so much impressed thereby, that the priests 
consulted as to the propriety of securing Lazarus 
also, and putting him out of the way. 

When it became known that, on a certain day 
before the Festival, it was the intention of Jesus to 
go to Jerusalem, the strangers who were in the city, 
waiting for the holidays to begin, and who had 
come from Galilee and other parts of the country, 
and were acquainted with his teachings and works, 
went out to meet him, with branches of the palm 
tree, and acclamations of welcome. Jesus, per- 
ceiving that publicity could no longer be avoided, 
and no longer desirous of doing so, sent his disci- 
ples to procure an ass, upon which he might ride 
into the city. This animal, upon which the ancient 
kings of Israel were accustomed to ride in times of 
peace, and when on journeys of peace and not war, 
signified to the whole people, friends and foes, the 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 209 

pacific spirit of the prophet of Nazareth, and was 
fitted, and, I think, expressly designed by him, to 
allay any disposition to violence in the populace. 

As the vast throng approached the city, so dear 
and holy to the heart of every Jew, they burst 
forth into enthusiastic shouts, cheering him as the 
long-expected Messiah, throwing down their palm- 
branches in his way, and spreading their garments 
for him to pass over. Some of the Pharisees, who 
had mingled with the crowd from curiosity, if with 
no worse design, called to him to observe what the 
people were saying, and to check them. "I tell 
you/* said he, "that if these were to hold their 
peace, the very stones would cry out;" intimating, 
I think, that only hearts harder than stone could 
keep silent, after such demonstrations of truth and 
power as had been witnessed. 

When the city, with its magnificent Temple, the 
scene and the monument of the renown of Israel, 
and to which the nation looked with an idolatrous 
affection, opened upon his sight, and, in prophetic 
vision, he beheld the Roman eagles hovering over 
their destined prey, ready with bloody beaks to rend 
and tear it, he burst into tears, and exclaimed, i 
Jerusalem ! Jerusalem ! how often would I have 
gathered your children together, as a bird gathereth 
18* 



210 HISTORY OP JESUS. 

her young under her wings, and ye would not ! 
Hadst thou but known thy true peace, even now, 
but now it is hid from thine eyes ! The days are 
coming, when thine enemies will lay siege to thee, 
and level thee with the ground, and thy children 
within thee, and will not leave one stone upon an- 
other, because thou wouldst not discern the time of 
thy salvation.' As the multitude, descending from 
the Mount of Olives, gazed upon the holy city, it 
shone in the blended glory of the future and the 
past. To their expectant sight, a new day was 
breaking over its glittering pinnacles upon the long 
night of national subjection. But Jesus, all un- 
moved by the homage of the people, which only 
rendered more manifest the falsehood of those hopes 
that sealed the ruin of his country, was weeping ; 
for he beheld the glory of Israel departing forever, 
to be succeeded by woe and ruin. 

As the mighty procession entered the city, as 
their shouts came, like the roar of billows, on the 
ears of the inhabitants, the whole city was moved, 
and people, unprepared for such an imposing de- 
monstration, wondered who it could be; and the 
multitude, composed in great part, as I have said, 
of persons from the country and from Galilee, re- 
plied, 'It is Jesus, the prophet of Nazareth of 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 211 

Galilee.' To the proud citizens of Jerusalem it 
might well seem a very mean affair ; for they des- 
pised the Galileans, and Nazareth most of all. 
But so strongly did the popular tide run in his 
favor, that his enemies were ready to despair of 
being able to resist it. It seemed to them, we are 
told, as if the whole world were taking sides with 
him. 

Upon entering the city, he went to the Temple. 
Again the money-changers and trades-people, in 
the blind eagerness of their pursuit of gain, and in 
the zeal of competition, had erected their booths 
and stalls within that sacred enclosure ; and again 
he compelled them to retire, and would not allow 
so much as any vessel to be carried through the 
Temple. If, in his solicitude for the sanctity of 
the place, traces of his Jewish origin and culture 
are thought to be perceptible, still, the wonder is, 
not that he had so many, but that he had so few 
of the peculiarities of his age and country. 

In the Temple, a crowd of children thronged 
around him ; and, as is always the way, catching 
the spirit and the word from older people, shouted 
their shrill Hosannas, and hailed him as the Mes- 
siah. The Pharisees, outraged by this profane 
clamor, so it seemed to them, wanted Jesus to put 



212 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

a stop to it. "Have you never read," replied he, 
" Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings thou 
hast perfected praise ?" His enemies would will- 
ingly have seized him, but it was in vain to attempt 
it while the whole people seemed to be with him. 
He continued the remainder of the day teaching in 
the Temple, 

There were some foreigners at Jerusalem, natives 
of Greece, who, with the characteristic curiosity of 
their country, had come to Judea, to note, I sup- 
pose, the manners and customs of this strange 
people ; and were travelling, probably, as was the 
practice much more, and for obvious reasons, in 
ancient times than in modern, for purposes of edu- 
cation. Witnessing the excitement produced by 
the teacher and prophet from Galilee, they solicited, 
through his disciples, an interview with Jesus. 
Curious as they were to see him, they little ima- 
gined that all the renowned philosophers of their 
native land were destined to be eclipsed by this 
unlettered Galilean. Whether their curiosity were 
gratified or not, we are not told. When their wish 
was mentioned to Jesus, it appears, by what he is 
recorded to have said, as if the desire of these 
strangers to see him only impressed him with a new 
sense of the fearful fate that awaited him, ^nd by 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 213 

which his glory was to be made manifest, and the 
labors of his life were to be crowned with success. 
Then it was that he made that remarkable declara- 
tion, remarkable for its deep, prophetic wisdom : 
" Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and 
die, it abideth alone ; but if it die, it bringeth forth 
much fruit." 'As it is necessary that the seed 
should be buried in the earth and decay, so I must 
perish, that the fruits of my life may abound.' 
Neither the interest shown in him by these Greeks, 
nor the acclamations of the people, could make him 
forget the terrible death that was impending, and 
the necessity there was for suffering, if true glory, 
honor with the Father, were to be attained. 

So vividly, at this time, did the vision of his 
dark destiny rise before him, that he became agi- 
tated, and exclaimed, C I am distressed, and what 
shall I say ? Shall I pray to escape the coming 
hour ? But for this very hour have I come thus 
far. Father, glorify thy Truth, without regard to 
me.' At that instant, thunder, distant it may have 
been, was heard ; so, at least, it appeared to the 
people standing by. Some exclaimed that it was 
an angel speaking to him. It was interpreted as 
the assenting answer of Heaven to his prayer. 
Jesus, seeing how those around him were startled 



214 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

by such a sound at such a moment, disclaimed it as 
a token intended for him ; it came, he said, for their 
sakes. 

At the close of the day, Jesus retired from the 
city to Bethany, where he spent the night. No 
doubt, there were those in Jerusalem who would 
gladly have received him into their houses ; but he 
knew that his enemies were on the watch, and he 
preferred to withdraw from the city at night. 

For a day or two afterwards, he went into the 
city and taught ; the people crowding to hear him. 
Then he related those parables, which point, with a 
significance not to be mistaken, at the religious 
teachers of the day, and show how fully he was 
aware of their violent and deadly designs. Then 
it was, also, that he foretold the coming destruction 
of the Temple and city, the appearance of many 
pretenders to the office of the Messiah, and the 
times of suffering and persecution that were to arise, 
when falsehood and treachery would abound among 
the nearest friends, and when, so complete would 
be the darkness and the ruin in which the nation 
was to be involved, that it would seem as if chaos 
had come again. 

I cannot venture to interpret the prophetic lan- 
guage of Jesus with any particularity. So much 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 215 

as this is clear, that the coming events, of which he 
spoke, were events which were to happen, as he 
said, in that generation, and which were visible to 
him in the existing signs of the times. I am satis- 
fied that Jesus himself regarded the coming of the 
Messiah, or of the kingdom of Heaven, not as the 
appearance of a person, but as the manifestation 
of the power of Truth. His disciples, however, 
without an exception, and long after his final dis- 
appearance, firmly believed that he was about to 
come back in that visible splendor, in which the 
Messiah had always been portrayed to their Jewish 
imaginations. In his private conversations with 
them, just before he was arrested, he told them that 
he would come to them just as Grod would come, 
and dwell in their hearts, if they only treasured 
there his sayings ; he would be present with them 
and in them, in the light and life of the Truth. 
While his thoughts were so spiritual, and theirs so 
Jewish, it becomes us to receive with caution the 
reports which they have given of his language. 

The Pharisees, not venturing to seize him, un- 
dertook to ensnare him in his talk ; but, baffled and 
silenced in such attempts, they soon ceased from 
them altogether. It was with this design, that 
certain of this sect joined with some partisans of 



216 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

Herod, who was in favor with the Roman govern- 
ment, to lay a trap for him. The Pharisees consi- 
dered the Roman tax as unlawful ; and this was a 
popular opinion. The Herodians maintained the 
lawfulness of paying the tax imposed by the Gen- 
tile emperor. Approaching Jesus with expressions 
of personal respect, with a compliment to his fear- 
lessness, they desired to know whether he consi- 
dered it right to pay tribute to Caesar. He saw 
through their duplicity, and detected their aim. 
They fancied they were sure of catching him by 
his answer. If he should say it was not lawful to 
pay the tribute, he would make the party of Herod 
his enemies, and might be charged with uttering 
treason. If he should say that it was lawful, he 
would offend the people. He repelled with severity 
the professions of respect made by these questioners. 
' You hypocrites !' he exclaimed, < why are you trying 
me V And then he bade them show him a piece of 
the Roman coin, in which the tribute was paid. 
They produced a penny. "Whose," he asked, "is 
this image and superscription?" "Caesar's," they 
replied. " Render, then, to Caesar what is Caesar's," 
he said, " and to God, what is God's." Confounded 
by this answer, they retired in silence. By using 
Roman money, the Jews virtually acknowledged 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 217 

themselves subjects of the Roman power. The 
tribute paid to the Temple could be paid only in 
Jewish coin, on which no Gentile image was stamp- 
ed. " Wherever the coins of any king are current, " 
says Maimonides, a high Rabbinical authority, 
" there the people acknowledge that king as their 
lord." 

The Sadducees, also, a sect distinguished for 
denying the doctrine of immortality, also attempted 
to silence him, but were discomfited. No one could 
answer or question him. But not only did he 
silence his enemies, he fulfilled the prediction of 
John, baptizing with wind and fire from Heaven. 
He poured out upon his opposers his burning de- 
nunciations, exposing their folly and blindness, and 
laying bare the falseness of their . pretensions to 
sanctity : seekers of popularity were they, he said ; 
making a show of their religion, compassing sea 
and land to make proselytes, whom they made 
worse than themselves; hankering after wealth, 
beguiling the poor out of their money, magnifying 
trifling distinctions ; whited sepulchres, fair to see, 
but inwardly full of dead men's bones ; raising 
monuments to the prophets whom their fathers 
persecuted, and persecuting the prophets of their 
own day to the death. If anything could exaspe- 
19 



218 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

rate them to the last degree, it was this bold and 
severe speaking. If there had been any wavering 
of their hostile purpose before, his doom was sealed 
from this hour. The priests resolved to seize him 
before the Festival, in order to avoid a popular 
tumult. 

Desirous of spending the last hours which he had 
at his own disposal, with the small company of his 
personal disciples, and aware of the designs that 
were formed against him, knowing that Judas was 
only waiting for an opportunity to give him up into 
the hands of the priests, he sent two of his friends 
to obtain a room, where they might meet in prepa- 
ration or observance of the Passover. When all 
was made ready, on the day of the week corre- 
sponding to our Thursday, he sate down to supper 
with the Twelve. To him it was an occasion of 
most tender and melancholy interest, the last time 
he was to spend with them alone. He told them 
he had looked forward to it with the greatest desire, 
that it was the last time he should eat and drink 
with them before the coming of the heavenly king- 
dom. 

As he presided at the table, when he came to 
break the bread and pour out the wine, accus- 
tomed to see spiritual resemblances in all things, 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 219 

the prospect of the death he was on the point of 
stffering, standing grimly before him, he saw in 
the bread and wine, which feed and refresh men, 
types of his own body, about to be broken, and his 
blood, about to be poured out, on the cruel cross, 
for the sustenance of the world; and, in the in- 
tensity of his mental suffering, yearning for the 
dear solace of human sympathy, he expressed his 
earnest desire to be cherished in affectionate remem- 
brance by his friends, when they should eat and 
drink together, as they were doing then, and he 
should no longer be present. They could not then 
enter into his heart, or dream what a burthen it 
was sustaining ; of course, they could not comfort 
him as he would gladly have been comforted. How 
much he valued human sympathy, let his ready 
acceptance of Mary's costly offering remind us. 
He longed, as it seems to me, to throw himself 
upon their bosoms, and to feel himself in the sooth- 
ing embrace of their affection. But as they could 
not understand him then, as they were then far, far 
less prepared than he was for what was at hand, as 
he knew that, in a few hours, they would all flee, 
and leave him alone in the hands of his enemies, 
he sought the only human support that was within 
his reach, in the prospect of being cherished there- 



220 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

after, in grateful and loving remembrance. That 
vision of future sympathy, that shadow of human 
consolation, was all that this world had to give him ; 
and thus, I conceive, was he prompted to ask them 
to connect the thought of him with the bread and 
the wine of which they might partake, when they 
should meet together, and he should no longer be 
present in person. This request of his shows this 
much, at least, that he had no idea of returning to 
them personally, as they confidently expected. 

So little were they aware of the fearful events 
that were close at hand, that their jealousy of one 
another betrayed itself even at this late hour, and 
while the heart of Jesus was overshadowed by the 
deep gloom of the near cross. I suppose that there 
was some contention among them for precedence at 
the table. We are told in the record, that they 
disputed which was the greatest in the kingdom of 
Heaven. That such was the nature of their con- 
tention, a struggle for places, seems to be intimated 
by the way in which their master proceeded to 
correct them. They sought pre-eminence of place 
at supper. He performed for them the office of a 
menial at the table. But be this as it may, if they 
showed a jealous rivalry when they first gathered 
round the table, Jesus permitted it to pass unnoticed 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 221 

at the moment ; but afterwards, at an interval, 
when the formal supper was over, he rebuked their 
selfish ambition in a manner never to be forgotten. 
He silently rose from his place, and laying aside 
his principal garment or mantle, and taking a basin 
and towel, he knelt down, and began to wash their 
feet ! Struck dumb in a perplexed astonishment, 
revering him too profoundly to dare to question, or 
inquire even, what he meant, they submitted, one 
after another, in silence, exchanging looks of wonder 
and curiosity, until he came to one, who could not 
possibly repress his emotion, and whose ardent 
temper, breaking out on every occasion, causes us 
to recognize him at once. 'Master!' exclaimed 
Peter, drawing away his feet; 'are you going to 
wash my feet V ' What I am doing,' replied Jesus, 
i you do not understand now, but you shall know 
by and by.' ' You shall never wash my feet !' pro- 
tested the disciple. 'If I do not wash you,' said 
Jesus, with, I cannot but think, most significant 
emphasis, 'you can be no friend of mine.' 'Mas- 
ter!' cried the other, 'not my feet only, but also 
my hands and my head !' I see the warm-hearted 
disciple, stretching out his hands and his feet, offer- 
ing his whole person for the welcome office that 
should make him his master's friend. ' He that is 
19* 



222 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

washed/ answered Jesus, ' needs not to be washed 
with the exception of his feet :' i. e. a person who 
has bathed requires only to have his feet washed, 
— as, when sandals were worn, which protected 
only the soles, the feet might soon become soiled 
with dust. c And ye are washed, ' added Jesus, i ye 
have been bathed in the cleansing waters of Truth, 
but not all f making a distant allusion to Judas. 

After Jesus had gone round, performing the same 
humble office for all, he resumed his mantle and his 
seat, and then explained what he had been doing. 
4 Do you understand what I have just been doing 
to you?' he asked; 'You call me master and 
lord, and you say, well, for so I am. If I, then, 
your lord and master, have washed your feet, you 
ought also to be ready to wash one another's feet. 
I have given you an example, that you should yield 
and defer to one another, and be the servants, each 
of all.' Thus he adopted the most impressive way 
possible, to show them how entirely out of place 
their mutual jealousies were. Certainly they re- 
ceived on this occasion a lesson which they were not 
likely ever to forget. 

After this admonition, he told them that he was 
not speaking to them all, that he knew the charac- 
ters of those whom he had selected, that the words 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 223 

of the ancient Scripture were then and there appli- 
cable: "He that eateth bread with me, hath lifted 
up his heel against me;' i. e. 'A familiar friend, 
who shares my bread with me, is trying to over- 
throw me.' 'I tell you of this,' he added, 'before 
it takes place, so that, when it has taken place, you 
may recollect that I told you of it ; and understand 
that I knew it all, and so have your confidence in 
me unshaken.' 

It is touching to observe the manifest reluctance 
with which he alluded to the treachery of one of 
his chosen disciples. He referred to it, the first 
time, very distantly. The second time he expressed 
himself more plainly. And finally, he was troubled 
in spirit, deeply moved, agitated, when he spoke 
out distinctly, and told them that one of them was 
about to deliver him into the hands of his enemies. 
He had no pleasure, but it wounded him very deeply 
to mention the fact. The grief which the treachery 
of Judas caused him, shows that although he had, 
at an early period, discovered the real character of 
the false disciple^ yet he had once regarded Judas 
as a friend. His sole reason for referring to him 
at all, was the reason which he gave : that his 
friends might know that he had not been taken 
by surprise, and retain their faith in him unshaken, 



224 HISTORY OP JESUS. 

The veneration with which they regarded him, — 
how incidentally and yet how clearly is it revealed 
in the way in which they received this communica- 
tion ! All but Judas must have been conscious that 
they entertained no evil design against their master. 
Yet, when he said that one of them was about to 
prove false to him, they did not resent the accusa- 
tion. They knew that he knew them better than 
they knew themselves; that, all unconscious as 
they were of any such treacherous purpose, it was, 
nevertheless, far more likely that they would prove 
false, than that he should utter a groundless charge. 
And accordingly, they ask, one after another, 
<c Master, is it I ? Master, is it I ?" 

Next to Jesus was his favorite diseiple, John, 
who, reclining at table, according to the custom of 
the time, lay so that his head rested on the breast 
of Jesus. Peter beckoned to John to ask their 
master who it was of whom he spake ; and John 
put the question to Jesus in a whisper : ' Lord, who 
is it V Aware, as I suppose, that he was observed, 
that Peter and others were watching to hear what 
he would answer, and not wishing to excite them 
against Judas, having no purpose but simply to let 
them know that he knew beforehand what was going 
to take place, he answered John in a whisper, say- 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 225 

ing : < Observe to whom I give this piece of bread, 
when I have dipped it ;' and taking a piece of bread, 
and dipping it, as I suppose was a custom, into the 
dish, he handed it to Judas. John turned to look 
at Judas, whose countenance, even though it were 
not darkened by the evil passions raging like de- 
mons in his soul, must have presented a totally new 
and changed expression to the amazed eyes of John, 
who, with striking truth of language, has said in 
his wonderful narrative of these incidents, that, 
"after the sop, Satan entered into Judas." John 
saw the devil in the face of Judas. The traitor, 
thus brought face to face with Jesus, was forced in 
a manner, for appearance's sake, to take up the 
general question ; and he, too, hoarsely whispered, 
"Master, is it I?" Jesus answered in the affirm- 
ative ; adding, in a low, rapid tone, ' Whatever you 
are going to do, do it quickly.' It is apparent, 
from this remark, that the agonizing suspense of 
his situation was beginning to weigh heavily on 
Jesus, and that he longed to have the horrible scene 
over. No one at the table, except John, knew what 
was meant. They supposed Jesus was giving Judas 
some directions about the Feast. 

Judas instantly rose and went out; "and," the 
artless narrative adds, "it was night," Night, in- 



226 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

deed ! night of blackness and storm, night of hell, 
in the bosom of the traitor, plotting against his best 
friend, the holiest of the sons of men! He had 
had until this moment, I suppose, only a general, 
undefined purpose of evil against Jesus. Because 
opportunity had been wanting, his base design had 
not taken precise form; he would fain put upon 
himself the falsehood, that his master had accused 
him without reason, and was about to denounce him 
to his fellow disciples before he had done any wrong. 
He went out then, I imagine, swearing in his heart 
that, since he was called a traitor to his face, he 
would be a traitor, and would have his revenge 
before them all, for being treated thus. 

While the soul of Judas is wrapped in the mid- 
night darkness of his base purpose, the spirit of 
him, against whom he went to conspire with the 
priests, is all radiant with an ineffable glory. That 
Jesus, in alluding to the treachery of Judas, had 
no design but the one he stated, namely, to confirm 
the confidence of his disciples in him, appears from 
what passed after Judas had left the place. Jesus 
did not point after the traitor, but, in his retreating 
steps, he caught the sound of his own coming fate ; 
and it broke upon him with a new distinctness. But, 
black though it was with suffering and scorn, yet, 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 227 

with the penetrating vision of a God-inspired spirit, 
he pierced through all the darkness, and his eyes 
lightened with that flood of glory which has since 
streamed from the cross on which he expired, as if 
it were a sun ! He thought no more of the false 
disciple; but as death came close to him, it was 
transfigured into an angel of the eternal Glory. 
In that doom, which to all other eyes announced 
defeat and ruin, he saw a magnificent victory, as it 
has in truth proved. The death of Jesus put the 
seal of an immortal triumph to his life. And when 
he saw his hour of suffering so near at hand, w T ell 
did he exclaim, ' Now is the Son of man glorified, 
and God is glorified in him, and that immediately. ' 
But, now that the parting hour had come, he 
looked round upon his disciples, from whom he was 
so soon to be separated, and his heart broke into a 
sudden gush of tenderness. * My children,' said he, 
' I shall be with you only a little w^hile. You will 
seek me ; and, as I said to the Jews, so now I say 
to you, whither I am going, you cannot go.' And 
then, as, in the near prospect of separation, he was 
made so aware of his affection for them, that it 
seemed new to him, and as if he now loved them 
for the first time, he added, c A new commandment 
I give you, that ye love one another as I have loved 



228 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

you. By this will you be known as my disciples, 
if you love one another.' He was so deeply moved, 
his tone was so impressive, that, bewildered, filled 
with dismay at the idea of being deserted by him 
now, when they were so confidently thinking that 
they were on the eve of the fulfilment of their 
splendid hopes, i where/ exclaimed Peter, ' where 
are you going?' ' Whither I go,' answered Jesus, 
€ you cannot follow me now, but you shall follow me 
hereafter. ' t Master,' cried the affrighted, agonized 
disciple, l why cannot I follow you now ? I will lay 
down my life for your sake ! Do not leave us. 
Wherever you are going, let me go with you. We 
will die for you.' 'Will you lay down your life 
for my sake V said Jesus ; ' verily I say to you, 
another day will not dawn, the cock will not crow, 
till you have thrice denied that you ever knew me !' 
How much better did Jesus know his disciples than 
they knew themselves ! He called them children, 
not solely from the impulse of his own tender affec- 
tion, but because, with all their ambitious hopes, 
they manifested the artless, confiding spirit of 
children. 

And now, too, when his words had struck dismay 
and despair to their hearts, and they sate around 
him with streaming tears and stifled sobs, overcome 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 229 

by the prospect of separation from him, their leader, 
the fountain of their hopes and their very life, 
Jesus, with a superhuman forgetfulness of himself 
and his own mighty sorrow, although needing con- 
solation most of all, gave himself wholly up to 
the office of comforting them, and suggested every 
consideration that could compose and strengthen 
them. 

As their tears flowed, 'be not distressed/ said 
he, ' trust in God, trust in me. There are many 
other places of abode in my Father's house be- 
sides this ; were it not so, I would have told you. 
By my going away, a place will be prepared for 
you; and when that place is prepared for you, 
we shall be together again. You know where I 
am going, and you know the way.' 'We do not 
know where you are going/ sobbed one of them, 
'and how can we know the way?' 'I am the 
way, the true, the living way/ said Jesus, 'I am 
going to the Father, and you cannot go to the 
Father but by me, by following me.' ' Show us the 
Father/ said another, 'and we shall be satisfied.' 
' Have I been so long with you V asked Jesus re- 
proachfully, 'and yet have you not known me, 
Philip ? In seeing me, you have seen the Father, 
and how can you ask me to show you the Father ? 
20 



230 HISTOKY OF JESUS* 

Do you not believe that the Father is in me, and 
that I am in the Father ? The words that I speak 
are not my own, but it is the Father, dwelling in 
me, who is speaking and acting through me. Be- 
lieve me, I am in the Father and the Father in me, 
or, if my declaration does not suffice, let my life 
speak for me; that manifests the presence of the 
Father. I assure you, if you only believe in me 
and in the Father in me, whatsoever I do, you will 
be able to do too; indeed, as I am going to the 
Father, and my course on earth is at an end, you 
will do greater things than I have done. Anything 
that as my friends, believing in me, you may desire 
to be done, will be done, and the glory of the 
Father will be manifested. As you love me, 
observe what I have commanded you, and I will 
pray the Father, and he will send another to com- 
fort you in my place, who will never be parted from 
you, but remain with you always : the True Spirit, 
to whom the world is a stranger, but you know that 
spirit, for it is in you now, and it will continue with 
you. You shall not be left like orphans ; I will be 
with you. In a little while I shall be on earth no 
more, but you will still see me, because I shall still 
live, and you will live too ; and then you will know 
as you have not known, that I am in the Father, 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 231 

and you in me and I in you. Only do as I have 
commanded you, and then, loving me, you will be 
loved by my Father, and I will love you, and mani- 
fest myself to you, — appear to you/ Here one of 
his disciples inquired, how he was going to manifest 
himself to them, and not to others, Jesus answered : 
1 If you love me, you will observe what I have said, 
and then my Father will love you, and we will both 
come and dwell with you. While I am yet among 
you, I tell you these things ; but that true spirit in 
your own hearts, which instructs and comforts you, 
and which is from God, and which has been strength- 
ened in you by my means, that will enlighten you, 
and remind you hereafter of all that I have said, 
and enable you to understand what you do not un- 
derstand now. Peace be with you ! but I do not 
give you this farewell salutation as it is ordinarily 
given. Do not be distressed, do not fear. You 
hear what I say ; I am going to my Father ; if you 
love me, you will be glad, because I am going to my 
Father, who is greater than I, and will protect and 
bless me : I tell you beforehand that I am going, so 
that when I am gone you may continue to believe 
me. I shall have no opportunity of talking again 
with you, for the power of the world is coming to 
separate us ; but that it may be manifest that I love 



232 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

the Father and obey him, come, let us leave this 
place/ 

Before quitting the place, they sang a hymn, and 
then went out and crossed the brook Kedron to the 
Mount of Olives. On their way to this spot, Jesus 
and his disciples passed by or through a vineyard, 
which, as we may suppose, suggested the illustra- 
tions which he used in his discourse to his disciples. 
"I am the true vine/' said he, "and my Father is 
the husbandman." "I am the vine, and ye are 
the branches." And then, carrying out the simili- 
tude, he enjoined it upon his disciples to continue 
true to him, and then they would have life, and 
produce much fruit, and glorify the Father. Thus 
far they had become what they were through their 
strong personal attachment to Jesus. It was their 
affection for him, which was the principle and life 
of their growth, and by which they would come to 
be so inspired, that their old Jewish ways of think- 
ing would lose their power, and they would learn to 
do and to endure like their master, and bring forth 
fruit like him. ' Only keep my commandments/ 
said he, * and you will continue to love me, just as 
I, by keeping my Father's commandments, continue 
in his love. And my special commandment is that 
you love one another with the same strength of 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 233 

affection which I have borne towards you; and 
greater love than mine cannot be cherished, for I 
am going to lay down my life for you. Do as I 
require, and you are my friends, — not my servants, 
but my friends. As such I have always regarded 
you ; for all that I have received of my Father, I 
have given you. You did not choose me, but I 
chose you, and I have appointed you to go forth 
and exert an enduring power, produce lasting fruit. 
When men hate and persecute you, remember that 
they hated me first. If you belonged to them, 
they would love you ; but you are not of them. I 
have chosen you from among them, and therefore 
they will hate you. They will drive you from their 
synagogues. The time is coming when they who 
kill you will think that they are serving God there- 
by. All these things they will do to you, because 
they knew not my Father nor me. I tell you all 
these things beforehand, so that when they take 
place, you may recollect that I told you of them. 
I did not mention these things to you at first, be- 
cause I was with you ; but now I am going to Him 
that sent me, and when I tell you all this, you are 
filled with sorrow. Nevertheless, I assure you, it 
is necessary, for your sakes, that I should leave 
you.' 

20* 



234 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

So long as he continued with them, they would 
persist in indulging the ignorant Jewish hopes which 
stood in the way of their progress towards larger 
ways of thinking. The death and departure of 
their master, though it shocked them in the pros- 
pect, would yet bring nobler thoughts, and expand 
their minds with a new and larger measure of the 
spirit of Truth ; that spirit of mind, which, he said, 
would be their comforter in his stead. With what 
truth, then, did he assure them that it was expe- 
dient for them that he should go away ; that if he 
did not leave them, the comforter would not come 
to them ! That spirit, he said, which was already 
with them and in them, would come with increased 
light and power, and teach them all that they could 
wish to know. 

Thus it is always. The things, the persons, that 
help us in our inner growth^ can give us only 
limited help. They assist us for awhile, and then 
impede us. The time comes when they have done 
for us all that they can, and then they must leave 
us, or we leave them. Our earthly friends, by 
teaching us to love, by practising us in the divine 
art, prepare us to love a higher than any earthly 
friend, parent or child. But if they did not leave 
us and go away, they would become our idols; we 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 235 

should rest in them, become stunted in our growth, 
and never know the richness and comfort of a 
higher love. 

Had not Jesus been parted from his friends, they 
would have kept brooding on the bright vision of 
the Messiah's reign ; and that spirit of Truth which 
comes from Heaven, would have been excluded 
from their minds. In answer to all his consoling 
words, his disciples expressed their entire confidence 
in him. They believed, they said, that he had 
come from God. ' Do you believe in me?' said he ; 
" Behold ! the hour is coming, it is even now come, 
when you will all be scattered, and I shall be left 
alone; and yet/ he added, 'I am not alone, the 
Father is with me.' 

Bidding them then be comforted, although they 
would have much to suffer, he raised his eyes to 
Heaven in prayer for himself and them. The hour 
of his death had come ; and, appealing from earth 
to Heaven, he naturally rose in thought far above 
the temporary dishonor which the world around him 
was casting on him, even to a consciousness of that 
glory which he had with God ; an uncreated glory, 
a glory which existed in the Divine mind from eter- 
nity, before the world was. He then prayed with 
a solemn fervor for his friends, that they might be 



236 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

made holy by Truth ; that they might be entirely 
one with one another, with him, and with God; 
that they might discern his glory, which was not 
the creation of a day, and share in it, and be with 
him where he was. 

They were at this time, I suppose, in some retired 
part of the Mount of Olives. He was momently 
expecting to fall into the hands of his enemies. 
Having been thus engaged in comforting his disci- 
ples, and preparing them for the parting that was 
at hand, he sought a moment's retirement for him- 
self, and turned towards a garden, to which he had 
loved often to resort, and where he had ofteii gone 
to walk with his disciples. 

When I read that the garden of Grethsemane was 
a favourite spot of his, and that he had often visited 
it, and then consider that here is the only mention 
that is made of it, I am struck with the incomplete- 
ness of the records. So far as they go, they are 
miracles of truthfulness ; and they tell us enough 
to enable us to form a living idea of Jesus and his 
teachings. But, nevertheless, how much have they 
left untold! It is natural to conclude that only 
the most striking incidents of his life, only his most 
remarkable sayings, only those things, in fine, 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 237 

which could not possibly be forgotten, which burnt 
themselves into the minds of men, beyond the pos- 
sibility of erasure, have been recorded. And when 
we consider the intrinsic character of the events 
that compose the history of Jesus, we perceive that 
it must have been even so. Had there been no 
implements of writing whatever, had no art of 
printing been subsequently invented, had there 
been no rocks even, upon which a record might 
have been rudely engraved, still the memory of 
such events would have kept sounding on from age 
to age. 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE GARDEN — THE HOUR OF DARKNESS — THE AR- 
REST THE HIGH PRIEST — PETER — THE TRIAL 

— HEROD — PILATE — CRUCIFIXION — DEATH. 

The garden to which Jesus went was connected, 
it appears, with a farm, devoted to the cultivation 
of the olive, and bearing the name of Gethsemane, 
from an olive or oil-press established there. Only 
a few years ago, the garden was planted with olive, 
almond, and fig-trees. The locality is identified, at 
the present day, by eight olive-trees standing there, 
which are so large, and apparently so aged, that 
they are supposed to have existed in the time of 
Jesus. Although it may be doubted whether they 
are the same trees under which he walked, since, 
according to Josephus, the Romans, when they 
destroyed Jerusalem, cut down all the trees within 

(238) 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 239 

a hundred furlongs of the city, yet the present 
trees, bearing the marks of great age, may have 
sprung from the ancient roots. The olive is propa- 
gated thus, and is very long-lived. 

So savagely picturesque, so ghostly, as I have 
been told, is the olive-tree, in the forms it presents, 
that the imagination of the modern traveller must 
be as deeply stirred in visiting Gethsemane, as by 
any one spot in all 

those holy fields, 
Over whose acres walked those blessed feet, 
Which, eighteen hundred years ago, were nailed, 
For our advantage, on the bitter cross. 

Those trees, I imagine, in their contorted shapes 
might seem to be the rugged characters in which 
Nature has inscribed on the spot her wild record, 
in enduring memorial of the untold agony of which 
that garden was the scene. 

When Jesus reached this place, he bade his dis- 
ciples remain near the entrance, perhaps, while, 
taking with him the three to whom he appears to 
have been most attached, he retired to a secluded 
and, perhaps, favorite part of the garden. 

Having put himself and his own sorrows by, in 
comforting his weeping followers, now, when that 



240 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

office had been discharged to the uttermost, and now 
too, when his physical exhaustion must have been 
extreme, there came, through the weakness of the 
flesh, a natural revulsion ; and in the stillness of the 
night, and the loneliness of the spot, a sense of his 
own solitary situation, and of the horrors that were 
gathering round him, came over him with an over- 
whelming power. Then he entered into that baptism 
to which he had more than once alluded, and the 
billows went over his head ; and it seemed to him, 
as he told his three friends, as if he should die ; so 
great was the anguish of his mind. He bade them 
stay where they were, and watch, — it is evident he 
was every moment expecting the emissaries of the 
priests, and did not wish to be taken by surprise, — 
while he retired a short distance to pray. And then 
he threw himself prostrate on the earth, and his dis- 
ciples overheard him say : ' my Father ! if it be 
possible, let this cup pass from me ; nevertheless, 
not my will, but thine be done :' but they, overcome 
by excitement and fatigue, soon fell asleep. He 
returned to them, and found them sleeping, and said 
reproachfully to Peter, who had always, and 
especially within the last hour, been so forward in 
his professions of attachment ; < What ! could you 
not watch with me one hour ? Watch and pray, lest 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 241 

you fall into temptation !' How must this warning 
have been wrung from his own agonizing experience 
at the moment ! " The spirit,'' he added, " is will- 
ing, but the flesh is weak." Was this, too, the 
breathing of his own tried and struggling soul, or 
was it an excuse for the unseasonable and unwilling 
slumbers of his disciples, or was it both ? Having 
awakened his disciples, that he might receive notice 
through them, if any one approached, again he 
retired to pour out his soul in prayer to Heaven. 
Again the same ejaculations were heard to burst 
from his lips ; and again he came back and found 
them asleep. How great must have been his ex- 
haustion, when they were so weary ! Awakening 
them, he returned the third time, and they caught 
from him the same words ; and so great was his 
agony in the sense of his dark and lonely fate, 
that, when he returned to his disciples, they saw the 
sweat running from him as copiously as if it had 
been his life-blood. The gloom, the solitude, the 
silence of the hour, and the suspense of the mo- 
ment, always far sharper than the acutest physical 
pain, all combined to crush him to the earth. 

At last his ear caught the sound of coming feet, 
or he may have dimly descried the forms of those 
approaching. He had not struggled and prayed in 
21 



242 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

vain ; in the hour of his extremity, strength came 
to him like a swift angel from Heaven ; and when 
he returned for the last time, and found his disciples 
again slumbering, 6 You may sleep on now,' he said, 
meaning evidently that their watching was now of 
no avail ; ' you may sleep on now, and take your 
rest, for the time has come, and I am delivered into 
the hands of evil men ; but arise ! come ! he that 
betrays me is at hand/ And upon this, a large 
company, variously armed, to guard against a 
rescue, approached. Judas, who was their guide, 
ran in advance, and saluted and kissed Jesus, hav- 
ing agreed with those who came with him to desig- 
nate their victim in this way. Jesus received him 
with a calmness, and even kindness, that must have 
gone like a dagger to the heart of the traitor. 
' Friend, for what have you come ? Do you betray 
me with a kiss?' Judas, having thus indicated 
Jesus to his captors, retreated, — vanished in the 
shadows of the night, but with the lurid glare of 
his own guilt about to break upon his soul. 

Jesus advanced to meet those who came to seize 
him, and asked whom they wanted. Upon their 
saying, 'Jesus of Nazareth/ 'I am he/ he replied: 
but so self-possessed, so commanding was his ap- 
pearance, that those in front of the band, who 



HISTORY OF JESUS. '2^6 

perhaps fully expected to find one ready to fly be- 
fore them, were so impressed by this unlooked-for 
fearlessness and a certain majesty in his air, and 
perhaps panic-struck also, for the moment, at the 
sudden thought of his mysterious power, started 
back so precipitately that some of the crowd were 
borne to the ground. 

They were thrown into such confusion, and 
paused so long before they advanced to take him, 
that again he asked whom they sought, and when 
they again answered, ' Jesus of Nazareth,' 'I have 
told you,' said he, ' that I am he ;' and then forget- 
ful of himself, and seeking to secure the safety of 
his disciples, he added ; ' If then you seek me, let 
these go their way. 5 As they approached "to lay 
hold of him, his disciples were disposed to resist 
with force, and Peter actually drew a sword, and 
wounded a servant of the High-Priest; but Jesus 
commanded him to put up the sword, observing that 
they who use the sword will perish by the sword, 
and intimating that he surrendered himself volun- 
tarily. He then said to the persons who were bind- 
ing him ; ' Have you come with swords and bludgeons 
to arrest me like a thief ? What need was there of 
proceeding thus secretly? In the broad light of 
every day I have been seated publicly teaching in 



244 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

the temple, but you laid no hands upon me ; but this 
is your fit season, — the night time/ The disciples, 
seeing him now in the power of this armed band, 
all forsook him and fled : and he was led away to 
the residence of the High-Priest, where the leading 
Pharisees were assembled, anxiously waiting for him 
to be brought before them. 

Peter and John followed him to the High-Priest's 
palace ; and John having some acquaintance with 
the family, went in, and by leave of the maid-ser- 
vant, who waited at the door, introduced Peter also. 
This woman, of course in her master's interest, 
recognized Peter, as he was passing in, as a fol- 
lower of Jesus, and said to him, ' Are you not one 
of this man's followers V and he answered that he 
was not. 

In the meanwhile, the High-Priest, taking the 
lead in virtue of his office, began to question Jesus, 
demanding to know the number of his disciples, 
and what he taught. Jesus replied : 6 What I have 
taught, I have taught before all the world, in public 
places, in synagogues, and in the temple where the 
people assemble. I have said nothing in private. 
Why do you question me ? Inquire of those who 
have heard me. They know what I have said/ 
The High-Priest, being thus answered, could not 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 245 

but appear contemptible ; and one of his people 
standing by, fancying that he had been spoken 
rudely to, because he was silenced, struck Jesus in 
the face with the palm of his hand, exclaiming, ' Is 
this the way you speak to the High-Priest V 'If 
I have said anything wrong, show where the wrong 
is,' calmly answered Jesus; 'but if I have said 
only what is true, why do you strike me V Various 
individuals then came forward to testify as to 
things that they had heard him say ; repeating and 
garbling fragments of his teachings. But so con- 
fused and trifling were these charges, that Jesus 
deigned no reply. He saw very clearly that his 
death was resolved upon ; and even when the High- 
Priest asked him if he had nothing to say, his 
silence answered, Nothing. Then Caiaphas adjured 
him, by the living God, to speak, and say whether 
he were the Christ. He replied that he was, and 
that it would so appear in the most convincing 
manner. Although secretly gratified, no doubt, at 
obtaining from him such a declaration, the High- 
Priest rent his clothes, in sign of horror, and ex- 
claimed against such blasphemy, and the council 
all declared that Jesus ought to be put to death. 

And then began a sickening scene of brutal 
violence. He was spit upon, and struck again and 
21* 



246 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

again, and made the sport of their wanton cruelty ; 
and blows and ridicule were poured upon that 
sacred head. They blindfolded him, and tfren kept 
striking him, bidding him exhibit his prophetic gift, 
and tell who it was who struck him. In referring 
to these details, I can hardly bear to depart from 
the phraseology of the records, to the full signifi- 
cance of which we are rendered insensible by cus- 
tom ; the effect of which, in this instance, is scarcely 
to be regretted, although we so often have reason 
to lament its influence in veiling from us the vivid 
reality of the history. 

While these things were going on, Peter was 
standing by the fire which had been kindled. The 
courage that brought him to the place had vanished ; 
and when again charged with being a follower of 
Jesus, terrified at what he witnessed, and at what 
his own fate might be, he declared that he did not 
know what the person who accused him thus was 
talking about, that he had no acquaintance with 
Jesus. The third time, the same charge was brought 
against him with increased confidence. His speech, 
it was said, betrayed him to be a Galilean. And 
then he denied it, with oaths, and imprecations on 
himself in case he did not speak the truth, calling 
Heaven to witness. That familiar voice, pouring 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 247 

out curses, caught the ear of his master, who, in- 
sensible to the savage violence of which he was the 
object, turned and looked at Peter. There was no 
surprise, no anger, no wounded feeling, in that look, 
but a divine pity, and a piercing, monitory signifi- 
cance, that went to the inmost soul of the false 
disciple; and he rushed out, and burst into an 
agony of bitter, bitter weeping. 

All this took place at night ; a fit season. Apart 
from the brutal manner in which he was treated, let 
it be remembered how he must have been well nigh 
worn out by the exhausting life he had been pre- 
viously, and within a few days, leading. When the 
morning dawned, the priests and leading men caused 
him to be led, bound, to the palace of the Eoman 
Procurator, Pontius Pilate, whither they also went 
in a body. They directed him to be carried into 
the praetorium, or judgment-hall; but the priests 
and Pharisees, though they were thirsting for inno- 
cent blood, were so very religious, that they would 
not themselves go into the Gentile court, lest they 
should be defiled in the eye of the ceremonial law, 
by coming in contact with Gentiles, and so be inca- 
pacitated to observe the Feast. But a number of 
persons, I suppose, went in, and John, probably, 
among them. The governor came out, and inquired 



248 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

of the priests what charge they brought against 
Jesus. 'If he were not a criminal/ said they sul- 
lenly, i we should not have delivered him up to you ; 
he leads away the people, and pretends that he is a 
king ; and he has been going all over the country, 
teaching, beginning in Galilee.' 

As soon as Pilate heard that Jesus was a Gali- 
lean, he resolved to send him to the Jewish prince, 
Herod, who chanced to be in Jerusalem at the 
time, and in whose jurisdiction Galilee was. The 
Roman governor, who, throughout, sought to evade 
the responsibility of his office, thinking it would be 
a fine opportunity to renew the friendly terms, 
which had been on some account interrupted, be- 
tween him and Herod, and also to get rid of the 
matter altogether, sent Jesus to Herod, who had 
heard of him, and was curious to see him, hoping 
to see him work a miracle. The priests and Phari- 
sees accompanied Jesus to the residence of Herod, 
and accused him, in the presence of that prince, 
with great vehemence ; to all which, Jesus probably 
answered nothing. His appearance was so wholly 
devoid of everything like vulgar force, that Herod 
could not but ridicule the idea of such a person's 
being dangerous. He allowed his guards to make 
liim the object of their rude jests ; but as there was 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 249 

nothing in him to provoke their cruel treatment, 
Herod soon tired of it, and sent him back to Pilate. 
No doubt, Pilate's heart sank within him with vexa- 
tion, when he saw Jesus returned upon his hands ; 
but a better understanding was established with 
Herod, and that was some consolation. 

Pilate then, as before, tried to induce the Priests 
to settle the matter themselves ; but they said that, 
though Jesus ought to die, they had no power to 
condemn him to death. 

While thus engaged, the governor received a 
message from his wife, charging him not to suffer 
Jesus to be harmed, for that he was an innocent 
man, and she had had a dream about him, which 
greatly disturbed her. It is altogether probable 
that she had previously heard much of Jesus, of his 
sayings and his works ; and that her imagination 
had been so much excited, as well it might be, that 
she had dreamed about him. 

Pilate was by no means devoid of humanity, but 
he was evidently a weak man. He would gladly 
have saved Jesus ; but though he saw the malignity 
of the priests, and the absurdity of the charges 
which they brought against him, he had not 
courage, knowing their influence with the people, to 
exercise his rightful authority. As he had failed 



250 HISTORY OF JESUS* 

in attempting to throw his responsibility on Herod 
and the priests, he began to question Jesus, hoping 
to get something from him that would help him to 
a decision. ' Are you a king ?' he asked. ' Do you 
ask me this question/ said Jesus in return, 'be- 
cause you yourself believe that I have assumed that 
character, or, because others have told you that I 
pretend to be a king ?' It is clear from these words 
that Jesus understood Pilate, saw that he was a 
tool, and had no mind of his own. And the answer 
of Pilate is a virtual confession of his incapacity to 
decide for himself, which he hides from his own 
eyes under cover of his Roman pride: 'I know 
nothing of the matter,' he says in effect, c I am no 
Jew ; your own people and the priests have delivered 
you up to me ; What have you done V Jesus an- 
swered, ' My kingdom is not of a worldly nature ; 
if it were, I should have had adherents who would 
have fought for me, and prevented my falling into 
the hands of the priests : my kingdom is not of this 
kind/ i Then you are a king V said Pilate. i Yes/ 
answered Jesus, c I am a king ; for this end was I 
born, and for this cause did I come into the world, 
to testify to the Truth ; and every true man is my 
subject, — hearkens to my voice.' ' What is Truth ?' 
asked the governor ; but, expecting from a poor Jew 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 251 

no satisfactory solution of a question which had so 
often been asked of great philosophers, but never 
answered, he went out again to the priests, without 
waiting for an answer, and told them that he could 
find no fault in him. 

He next proposed that, as it w T as the custom for 
some one prisoner, as an act of grace, to be released 
at the time of the Passover, he should release 
this king, as they styled him. But the priests had 
instructed their partisans to call for the release of 
Barabbas, a notorious robber and rioter, then in 
confinement for sedition and murder. ' What then/ 
asked the governor, i shall I do with Jesus who is 
called the Christ?' 'Let him be crucified!' they 
answered. ' But what evil has he done V To the 
expostulations of Pilate, however, no reply was 
returned but the savage cry, i Let him be crucified V 

When the governor saw T that he could not turn 
them from their cruel purpose, and the clamor 
that was raised grew so loud that he could not 
make himself heard, he took water, which we may 
suppose was standing near in some vessel, and 
dipping his hands into it, shook it off, to intimate by 
this expressive act, to the whole crowd, and to those 
at a distance especially, what he announced at the 
same time in words ; calling all to witness that he 



252 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

would not stain himself with innocent blood ; that 
the responsibility must lie with them. Expressive 
as this act was, it was a very weak evasion, as if, 
suffering Jesus to be put to death when it rested 
solely with him, he could, nevertheless, clear himself 
of his blood as easily as he dashed the water from 
his hands. ' His blood be upon us and our children ! 
We will take the responsibility !' yelled the priests 
and the mob. In the ruins of Jerusalem, soaked 
in blood, a few years after, how terribly was this 
cry answered ! 

Weak as he was, Pilate could not satisfy himself 
thus. He next sought to appease the priests, by 
subjecting Jesus to the torture of the scourge. 
The Roman scourge was a whip with a number of 
thongs, pointed with sharp bits of metal, and is by 
ancient authors termed horrible, from the fearful 
blows which it inflicted. By thus far yielding to 
the appetite for blood, Pilate hoped to allay it ; but 
he only inflamed it. So far from gaining anything 
by this act of cruelty, he only betrayed his weak- 
ness, and stimulated the efforts of the priests. After 
causing Jesus to be scourged, and giving him up to 
the brutal sport of his soldiers, who put on him an 
old purple robe, and a crown of thorns or weeds, in 
derision of his royal pretensions, saluting him as 



HISTORY OF. JESUS. 



253 



a king, while they treated him as a poor, worthless 
creature, Pilate had him brought out, arrayed in 
the purple robe and mock crown, and presented to 
the view of the mob. Calling to them to look at the 
man, while he affirmed that he found no fault in 
him, he trusted either that their hearts would be 
softened at the sight, or that they would be shamed 
out of the folly of regarding such a person as dan- 
gerous. 

At sight of him, the chief priests and their re- 
tainers, like wild beasts, ravenous in the presence of 
their prey, began to shout, i Crucify him ! crucify 
him V Pilate said, ' Take him yourselves and cru- 
cify him, for I find no fault in him.' ' We have a 
law/ said they; 'and by that he ought to die, be- 
cause he has pretended to be the Son of God.' 

Although the governor was of that careless 
character, that he could ask what Truth is, without 
waiting for an answer, yet he might well have been 
liable to superstitious fears, nevertheless. When 
he heard that Jesus had claimed to be the Son of 
God, his alarm increased. When two such persons 
as Jesus and Pilate were brought together, it must 
needs be, notwithstanding the wide difference in 
their external circumstances, although Jesus stood 
there as a prisoner, and Pilate as a judge, that the 
22 



254 HISTORY OF JESUS, 

superiority of the former would make itself felt at 
once, and almost unconsciously, by the latter. The 
weak mind of Pilate must have been completely 
overawed, from the very first, by the calm bearing 
of Jesus, by the silence and serenity which he pre- 
served amidst the horrid din of a mob clamoring 
for his life. And although the governor had little 
reason to regard anything the priests might say, 
yet the whole appearance of the man arraigned 
before him, from its very simplicity, may well be 
imagined to have been invested, in the anxious and 
perplexed eyes of Pilate, with an air of alarming 
mystery, and to have given the warrant of truth 
to the idea of his being some god in disguise. 

Jesus was again led back to the judgment-hall, 
and Pilate also went in, and began again to question 
him. ' Whence are you V he inquired ; or, in other 
words, 'Who are you?' Jesus made no reply. Of 
what avail was it to speak, when he saw that Pilate 
had no strength to protect him. l Do you refuse 
to speak to me V asked the governor ; ' do you not 
know that I have power to crucify you, and have 
power to release you V That was more than Pilate 
knew, himself. His mind must have misgiven him, 
as to the reality of his authority, or he would 
hardly have paraded it thus. This sounds like a 



HISTORY OF JESUS, 255 

cowardly man, * You could have no power to 
harm me/ said Jesus, ' unless it were given you 
from above. The chief guilt of this transaction 
lies with those who have delivered me into your 
hands.' Without excusing Pilate, he simply denied 
him the power to which he pretended. True and 
just was the man of Nazareth, even in this fearful 
crisis. 

The governor now manifested an increased desire 
to release Jesus, but the' priests began to threaten. 
The weakness which he had shown, their sight, 
sharpened by a resolute purpose, could not fail 
to detect. They were not likely to be insensible 
to the advantage which he had given them by his 
wavering course, and by the concession he had 
already made to their demands, in having ordered 
Jesus, whom he had declared innocent, to be 
scourged. 'If you let this man go/ cried they, 
'you are not Caesar's friend: whosoever assumes 
to be a king, speaks against Caesar.' At this allu- 
sion to the reigning Caesar, Tiberius, one of the 
most suspicious tyrants that ever held the Roman 
sceptre, the Procurator might well tremble, especially 
if he did not feel himself secure of the imperial 
favor ; and that he could hardly have been devoid 
of anxiety on this score, we may infer from the 



256 HISTORY OP JESUS. 

notoriously rapacious manner in which he was 
administering his procuratorship, and from the fate 
that finally overtook him : banishment on the charge 
of treason. 

Upon hearing this mention of his imperial master, 
Pilate again brought Jesus forth, and took his place 
on the judgment-seat which was erected outside the 
judgment-hall, upon a tessellated pavement which 
gave its name to the spot. Floors of variously 
colored stones were a mark of wealth and rank 
among the Romans, and the fashion had spread into 
the provinces. Julius Caesar, it is stated by an 
ancient author, was accustomed to have, carried 
about with him, a quantity of differently colored 
pieces of marble, so that wherever he pitched his 
camp, a pavement of this kind might be laid. 

But even after he had taken his place in the judg- 
ment-seat, and thus signified that he was about to 
yield to the barbarous demands of the priests, 
Pilate still hesitated. ' Look at your king/ said he, 
evidently hoping to taunt them out of their ab- 
surdity in raging so furiously against one so weak 
and unoffending as Jesus appeared to be. The 
only answer that was returned was, 'Away with 
him ! Away with him ! Crucify him V i Shall I 
crucify your king?* asked Pilate. 'We have no 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 257 

king but Csesar !' said the priests, making a pre- 
tence of loyalty. At the sound of that dread 
name, Pilate's feeble resistance ceased altogether, 
and he doomed Jesus to suffer death by crucifixion ; 
a mode of death then accounted so ignominious, 
and so excruciating, that an ancient writer says that 
not only should the cross be kept from the body 
of a Roman citizen, but the very name of it 
should not approach the thoughts, the eyes, or the 
ears of a Roman. 

The construction of the cross is familiar to us 
all. As far as can be gathered from ancient 
writings, it was not so high as it is usually repre- 
sented. The wretched victims of this barbarous 
death were nailed to the cross by the hands ; the 
feet, which were not nailed, but bound to the cross 
with cords, were not more than three feet from the 
ground. About the middle of the upright post or 
stake, a piece of wood was attached, and was de- 
signed to support the body of the sufferer, who was 
placed astride upon this centre-piece or seat. This 
support was provided, not to alleviate suffering, but 
merely to uphold the body ; as those upon whom 
this terrible torture was inflicted were sometimes 
left to writhe in agony for days, until, exhausted at 
last by thirst and pain, they expired, and then their 
22* 



258 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

bodies wasted away in the sun and the rain, or 
Were devoured by wild beasts and birds of prey. 
To this bitter death, Pilate sentenced Jesus. 

Then was Jesus again given up to the soldiers, 
whose barbarian natures, long fed by bloody sports 
and gladiatorial shows, found pleasure in torturing 
a poor, defenceless, fellow-man. Again was every 
indignity heaped upon him ; and, taking the idea 
from the governor, in ridicule of his kingly claims, 
they put a reed in his right hand, to represent a 
sceptre, and knelt down before him, and pretended 
to salute him as a king, striking him all the while. 
And he silently bore it all, like a lamb in the bloody 
house of slaughter, and forgave them in his heart, 
knowing how ignorant they were of what they were 
about. At last they grew tired, and stripped off 
his mock regalities, and put his own clothes on him, 
and led him away to execution. 

According to custom, the cross to which he was 
to be nailed was laid upon his shoulders, and he 
was required to carry it. He bore it, half fainting, 
through the streets of the city, towards the place 
of execution, outside the walls, and was followed by 
a crowd ; and there were many women in the crowd, 
who wept to see his sufferings ; and, as they pressed 
near to him, with looks of the deepest commisera- 



HISTORY OF JESUS- 259 

tion, and with streaming eyes, ' Daughters of Jeru- 
salem/ said he; 'weep not for me, weep for your- 
selves and your children. For behold, the days 
are coming, when it will be said, Blessed are they 
that never bare, and the breasts that never gave 
nourishment. And then, too, the people will invoke 
the hills and mountains to fall and cover them from 
the calamities of that day. If the innocent suffer 
as I do, what will be done to this guilty nation ! 
If such things are done to the green tree, what will 
befal the dry V 

When the dark procession had got beyond the 
city walls, his strength gave out ; and so evident 
was it that he was not equal to the cruel burthen 
of the cross, that the soldiers who had him in 
charge, fearing, perhaps, that he might die before 
he reached the place of execution, and so disappoint 
them of their savage amusement, laid hold of a 
stranger coming from the country, and compelled 
him to go behind Jesus and carry the cross. Blessed 
privilege ! who would not have leaped to give him 
even that poor relief ? 

The name of this stranger, Simon, a Cyrenian, 
on whom the indignity, which the soldiers thought 
to put on him, has conferred immortal honor, is 
mentioned in two of the records ; and in one of the 



260 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

two, it is said that lie was the father of Alexander 
and Rufus. It would seem, then, that these two 
individuals were known among the early disciples. 
And in the book of the Acts of the Apostles, we 
find Alexander mentioned as a companion of Paul 
at Ephesus; and among the friends at Rome, to 
whom Paul sends salutations at the close of his 
epistle to the disciples in that city, the name of 
Rufus occurs. It is probable, therefore, that the 
part which Simon, from Cyrene, was unexpectedly 
required to take on that occasion, was the means 
whereby his sons, and, I suppose, he himself also, 
became disciples of Jesus. 

The spot appointed for the crucifixion, on a hill 
called Calvary, was only a short distance from 
Jerusalem. It received its name, Golgotha, a skull, 
from the fact that the bodies of those who had 
been executed were buried there. To the Jews, 
who considered themselves defiled by contact with 
any dead body, this spot must have been pecu- 
liarly hateful. When it was reached, as Jesus 
appeared greatly exhausted, there w T as offered him 
vinegar, or some medicated mixture ; such as was 
given, in accordance with a custom, which had some 
touch of humanity in it, to those who were about 
to be crucified, in order to enable them the better 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 261 

to endure their sufferings. But though probably 
already tortured with thirst, he refused to drink it, 
or to owe any strength to such help. 

And then they nailed his hands and fastened his 
feet to the cross ; and as his blood trickled down, 
and his limbs quivered under the torture, no cry of 
pain broke from his parched lips; but, 'Father, 
forgive them/ he exclaimed, 'they do not know 
what they are doing !' He knew that those men, 
brutal as they were, had they known who and what 
manner of person they were treating with such 
barbarity, would have kissed the hands which they 
were lacerating, and prostrated themselves at his 
feet, and bathed them with their tears. Knowing 
this, he would allow no sufferings of his own, how- 
ever severe, to blind him to this extenuation of their 
cruelty. From amidst the horrors of the cross the 
ineffable mercy lightens ! 

Pilate, smarting in his weak soul, under a sense 
of his own humiliation, in being made a tool of, was 
determined to be revenged upon the priests : it was 
a small revenge that he took, but it no doubt was 
some gratification to a weak man like Pilate. He 
caused to be attached to the cross, over the head of 
Jesus, a writing designating him as the king of the 
Jews ; and in order to render the taunt as irritating 



262 HISTORY OP JESUS. 

as possible, Pilate caused the writing to be in Greek, 
Hebrew, and Latin, that Greeks and Romans, as 
well as Jews, might read it. The priests tried to 
induce him to alter this superscription, but he re- 
fused ; compensating himself for the want of power 
in the more important matter, by making them feel 
it in this small particular. 

With Jesus, two others were crucified, thieves, 
who had probably been reserved for execution until 
the feast, when large numbers of people were 
collected at Jerusalem. 

And a crowd of people stood and looked on ; and 
some of the priests eame, with teachers of the law, 
and the leading men of the nation, to glut their 
vengeance and hate with the sight of his agonies. 
No drop of pity fell from their hearts of stone; 
but they tossed their heads in triumph, and said : 
6 He saved others : if he is the great king, let him 
come down from the cross ; we will believe in him 
then : he pretended to put his trust in God ; let God 
deliver him now, if God befriends him : he called 
himself the Son of God !' And other voices were 
heard calling out to him from the crowd: * You, 
who said you could destroy the temple and rebuild 
it again in three days, save yourself, and come 
down from the cross ! ' 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 263 

And even one of those who were crucified with 
him, joined in railing at him; but the other re- 
proved his companion, confessing his own guiltiness, 
and asserting the innocence of Jesus. However he 
may have offended, there was evidently a soul of 
pure goodness in this man, that was touched by the 
appearance of Jesus, and that needed only to look 
at him, to be satisfied that he was innocent. Far, 
very far from being hardened in guilt, was this man. 
He showed a sensibility which Jesus was sure to 
appreciate. He called to Jesus and said : " Master, 
remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.' ' 
" Verily I say unto you," said Jesus, " to-day thou 
wilt be with me in Paradise !" Already by his hum- 
ble, penitent, and reverent heart he was with Jesus, 
not in suffering only, but also in spirit. Already 
was he entering Paradise, although by a gate of 
fire. 

At a little distance from the cross, amidst the 
crowd, the mother of Jesus was standing, supported 
by his dearest friend, John. What a scene was 
that for a mother to witness ! What agony was 
her's! Her dying son caught sight of her; and 
though his flesh was writhing with the torture of 
his position, and his tongue and lips were burning 
with the death-thirst, he gasped out to her in broken 



264 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

words, 'Woman! look there! thy son !' What a 
world of love was there ! It was as if he had 
said, ' Grieve not for me. Let John be your son 
now. Give him your mother's heart.' And he 
called to John also : ( See ! your mother ! Take my 
place, and cherish her as your mother V Though 
his words were disjointed and brief, yet he was 
understood ; and thenceforth John regarded Mary 
as his mother. 

After this, the sufferings of Jesus became so ex- 
cruciating, that, in his agony, a cry of desperation 
burst from his lips ; but it took form, in his devout 
spirit, from the language of one of the pathetic 
songs of David : " My God, my God, why hast thou 
forsaken me!" Speaking in his own language, he 
addressed God by that name which, in the native 
dialect of Jesus, is precisely the same name of God 
which the Mahometan uses at this day, — "Allah! 
Allah!'' 

Some of the bystanders, touched with pity at his 
agonies, were about to offer him the mixture of 
vinegar, or sour wine, which was at hand; but 
others interfered, and, wilfully misunderstanding 
the words he had just uttered, said in derision, ' He 
is calling for Elias; let us wait and see whether 
Elias will come to his assistance.' After an inter- 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 265 

val, burning with thirst, he exclaimed, 'I thirst!' 
and then they dipped a sponge in the mixture, and 
fastening it on the end of a stick, raised it to his 
lips ; but he desired no such stupefying aid, and, 
agonized as he was, he refused to take it. 

At length, as death drew on, in triumphant trust 
in God, gathering up his utmost strength, he cried 
aloud, ' Father, into thy hands I commend my 
spirit/ And as the benign lethargy of death stole 
over him, and his sense of suffering was dulled, he 
exclaimed, 'It is over!' and his head fell upon his 
breast, and he expired. And that angel spirit sank 
into the arms of the Everlasting Father, and was 
at peace. 



23 



CHAPTER X. 

JESUS DESTROYED BY A FACTION — STARTLING CIR- 
CUMSTANCES ATTENDING HIS DEATH — APPARI- 
TIONS THE BODY TAKEN DOWN FROM THE CROSS 

THE BURIAL — THE GUARD — DISCIPLES DIS- 
CONSOLATE — RESURRECTION — THE WOMEN AT 
THE TOMB — REAPPEARANCE TO MARY — TESTI- 
MONY IRRESISTIBLE — CONCLUSION. 

It may seem, at first sight, difficult to under- 
stand, when Jesus was in such high favor with the 
mass of the people, that the priests and Pharisees, 
powerful as they were, dared not offer him any 
violence in public, how it was that, when they had 
once by treachery secured his person, they suc- 
ceeded in executing their bloody purpose without 
encountering the smallest resistance. It is true, 
the populace are proverbially inconstant, ready to 
tear in pieces, on the morrow, those whom to-day 

(266) 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 267 

they welcome with shouts of admiration. But it is 
not in this way altogether, that the success of the 
enemies of Jesus is to be accounted for. 

It is plain that he fell a victim to a faction 
headed by men in power, by the ecclesiastical 
authorities of the nation, whom he had mortally 
offended by his fearless publication of the Truth. 
The majority of those who favored him were persons 
from the country, who considered themselves stran- 
gers in Jerusalem, and were, moreover, accustomed 
to defer to the priesthood. We all know, too, how 
a few bold, bad men, may overawe a multitude, and 
how the lowest of the people, those who delight in 
riot and bloodshed, are always ready to make com- 
mon cause with any who offer them opportunity to 
glut their savage passions. The priests well knew 
that, if they could once possess themselves of the 
person of Jesus, and present him to the people in 
circumstances of disgrace and helplessness, as a 
criminal, the incongruity of such a situation with 
the magnificent idea of the Messiah, would be 
deeply felt, and the hopes which he had created 
would be withered at once. The generality of 
people are ever willing to be led. 

After all, there were, no doubt, hundreds, who 
looked on and saw Jesus put to death, who in their 



268 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

hearts abhorred the act, and would gladly have 
saved him, but they knew not what to do. They 
were very sorry, but they did not see how it could 
be helped. His enemies, though a small minority, 
were banded together and resolute ; his friends, 
though many, were undecided ; and there were nume- 
rous varieties and shades of feeling among them ; 
and no one was sure of another. In corroboration 
of these remarks, we read that the people who went 
out to witness the crucifixion of Jesus, so soon as it 
was over, and he had breathed his last, returned to 
the city, with expressions of great grief at the 
event, smiting their breasts. 

The last moments of Jesus were accompanied 
with many startling circumstances. For three 
hours the sky was so thickly overcast, that to his 
friends, who saw all things through the awful gloom 
of such a dread catastrophe, the darkness may well 
have seemed portentous. And there was the shock 
of an earthquake; whether the earth shook all 
around, in sympathy at the departure of so mighty 
and god-like a spirit, may be questioned, but it 
cannot be confidently denied, seeing that all things 
are intimately related and bound together to form 
the great whole, and the slightest movement is pro- 
pagated throughout the universe. Be this, however, 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 269 

as it may, the earthquake was so violent, that the 
stones which closed the mouths of the tombs were, 
in some instances, shaken from their places, and the 
bodies of the dead were thus exposed to the startled 
view of the alarmed passers-by ; and individuals, 
excited and terrified by all that they had witnessed, 
had visions of ghosts. The dead appeared to many 
in fearful dreams ; or simple, natural appearances 
became to minds affected with superstitious alarms, 
and to eyes dilated with wonder and fear, invested 
with a supernatural character. And, in addition to 
rumors of this kind, it was whispered with white 
lips, that the veil in the Temple, which hung before 
the Holy of Holies, and was probably worn by age, 
was discovered to be torn, which, however it may 
have happened, could not fail to be considered as a 
most ominous coincidence, although at any other 
time it would hardly have been noticed. 

These circumstances, attendant on the death of 
Jesus, and generated or magnified by the agitation 
of the public mind, show us how great that agitation 
was, and undesignedly bear convincing witness to 
his extraordinary life and character. Men's minds 
could not have been so deeply stirred without ade- 
quate cause. He could have been no common 
person, by whose death the imagination was so fear- 
23* 



270 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

fully excited that it laid open the world of the dead, 
and beheld apparitions of the departed, and ac- 
counted the darkness of the day, and the rent veil 
in the Temple, as appalling portents. 

The centurion, who had command of the band of 
soldiers having in charge the crucifixion, and those 
who were with him, when he saw what took place, 
avowed their belief, not only that Jesus was inno- 
cent, but that he was what the Jews had said he 
claimed to be, the Son of God. 

His chosen disciples, with the exception of John, 
had disappeared. They did not dare to show them- 
selves, lest they should be recognized as his particu- 
lar friends, and be treated accordingly. But the 
women, who had followed his steps with the ministry 
of their gentle and affectionate offices, endeavoring 
always to provide for his comfort, when, as must 
so often have been the case, he was worn out by 
fatigue and hunger and thirst, these women stood 
looking on at a distance ; and when he had breathed 
his last, and the crowd was dispersed, they still 
lingered on the spot, anxious to see what would be 
done with those beloved remains. 

At the close of the day, the priests and leading 
Pharisees went to Pilate, and requested that he 
would order the three crucified men to be killed, so 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 271 

that their bodies might be removed, and the ghastly 
spectacle might not defile the next day, which was 
the Sabbath, and a day of special observance ; so 
zealous were they, blood defiled as they were, for 
the decencies of religion. And there went also to 
the governor, Joseph of Arimathea, a man of wealth 
and standing ; a member of the Sanhedrim, or 
Jewish council, who had refused to consent to the 
death of Jesus, and in private avowed himself his 
disciple ; and begged that the body might be given 
up to him. Pilate was so surprised to hear that 
Jesus had died so soon, that he summoned the cen- 
turion who had been charged with the execution, to 
ascertain from him whether Jesus were really dead. 
It was not common for the crucified to die so soon. 
They oftentimes lingered many hours and whole 
days ; but it is to be considered that those, upon 
whom this barbarous death was commonly inflicted, 
were persons of a rugged, animal nature, possess- 
ing little sensibility ; while the physical organization 
of Jesus must have been of such a character, that 
the wonder truly is, when we consider all that he 
endured, not that he died so soon, but that he did 
not die sooner ; that he lived to reach Mount Cal- 
vary. I suppose that Pilate was relieved, when 
he found that Jesus was dead, and he had thus 



272 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

escaped the painful necessity of giving a new order 
for his death. Satisfied on this point, he directed 
that the wishes of the priests, and of Joseph, 
should be complied with. 

We are told that they requested, not, in so many 
words, that the crucified should be put to death, but 
that "their legs should be broken," and the bodies 
removed. Although this operation could not fail to 
accelerate death, it is not easy to see how it would 
terminate life as speedily as was intended. But I 
suppose it was done in such a way, or accompanied 
by so severe a blow, as to extinguish life instantane- 
ously. 

The soldiers proceeded to fulfil the orders of 
Pilate. Aware that Jesus was dead, they first dis- 
patched the two who were crucified with him, and 
then turned to him ; and in order to make it certain 
that he was dead, one of the soldiers thrust his 
spear into his side. If, as is probable, the soldier 
stood in front of the body, and held the spear in 
his right hand, he must have pierced the left side. 
And that the spear, entering upwards, penetrated 
the pericardium, which surrounds the heart, appears 
from what followed. As the spear was drawn out, 
there flowed out water discolored with blood. The 
pericardium always contains a small quantity of 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 273 

water, which serves the office of lubricating the 
heart, and which is said to be somewhat increased 
in cases of violent death. 

And then came Joseph of Arimathea, accom- 
panied by Nicodemus, with attendants, bringing a 
large quantity of myrrh and aloes ; and they took 
the body down from the cross, and, wrapping it 
with the spices in linen cloth, they bore it to a 
garden near at hand, and laid it in a new tomb, 
hewn out of solid rock, in which no one had yet 
been buried ; the women, friends of Jesus, looking 
on all the while. As the Sabbath was approaching, 
the burial was hurried. After placing a large stone 
at the mouth of the tomb, Joseph and the rest re- 
tired ; the women, to make additional preparations 
for the burial of their friend in a manner accordant 
with the love they bore him, and to wait till the 
Sabbath should be over. 

After the body had been given up to the friends 
of Jesus, and been buried by them, the priests and 
Pharisees went to the governor, and requested him 
to grant them a guard, to be stationed at the tomb, 
as they had heard that Jesus had said that he 
would rise from the dead on the third day, and they 
were afraid that his disciples might go and remove 
the body from the sepulchre, and then give out that 



2T4 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

he had come to life, and so the imposture would be 
worse than ever. Pilate granted their request. A 
seal was so attached to the stone, or to a cord 
stretched across the stone, that it could not be re- 
moved without breaking the seal, and a guard was 
set. All this was done as privately as possible, 
after the departure of those who had laid the body 
in the tomb, or the next day. The disciples of 
Jesus do not appear to have known that a guard 
was stationed there, until afterwards. 

The day after his death and burial was the Sab- 
bath ; a day of rest indeed to him. But although 
his body, no longer racked with pain, heaving no 
longer with the pulse of weary, struggling life, re- 
posed in the peaceful arms of the angel of death, 
yet that soul, mighty in its truth and goodness, was 
still living, as all souls live. That could not die. 
It was repairing its God-given energy ; and, by the 
same transcendent power by which it summoned 
Lazarus from the grave, it was about to reanimate 
and reawaken that frail and mangled form of flesh. 

And the Sabbath came, and the sun rose and 
shone on that silent tomb, and the hours circled in 
their wonted order. The priests went through with 
their cumbrous formalities in the Temple, relieved 
from their fears, exulting in their triumph, and 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 275 

dreading no change. The people missed that new 
and mighty teacher, whose works of power and 
beneficence had filled them all with wonder, and 
whose voice, that made their hearts burn within 
them, still lingered in their ears with an unwonted 
fascination. His disciples, rudely awakened from 
their brief, bright dream, were plunged in the 
deepest sorrow. He, whose presence had been their 
light, calling into life the most magnificent hopes, 
had perished on the vile cross, and theywere lost 
in thick darkness. His body lay lacerated, dead, 
in the tomb. What remained for them, but to 
mourn their blasted lives, and, broken-hearted, to 
turn their heavy steps back again to Galilee, there 
to ply their irksome nets again upon the lake, feed- 
ing themselves on sad memories of the Past. How 
often, in their folly, had they disputed which should 
be the first in the grand kingdom ! And now there 
was to be no first; the whole bright vision had 
melted into air. The throne of the Messiah, 
blazing with pomp, had disappeared, and there stood 
before them the grim cross, with the body of their 
fancied prince hanging there, torn and bleeding ! 
Little dreamed they that that vile instrument of 
death was to surmount thousands of temples, and 
be worshipped as a divine symbol, and give its name 



276 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

to the fairest of the constellations ! How must 
they have wept over their utter disappointment ! 
And yet in what tenderness must their hearts have 
been dissolved, and how must their tears have 
gushed forth afresh, as often as the tones of that 
loved voice woke again in their minds, and the 
image of the master they had adored rose vividly 
to remembrance, and they recalled his looks, beam- 
ing with affection, his words, burning with Truth. 
What though he had said he would rise again; 
what now were words, however vividly remembered, 
to the overwhelming, present fact. He was gone. 
The midnight of death had shut down and separated 
him from them. The inexorable grave held him. 

Again the sun set, and the shadows of night 
gathered over Jerusalem and its thousands; and 
the women, with their spices and unguents all pre- 
pared, waited for another day. The day drew on. 
And as its first grey light glimmered through the 
curtains of the East, the body in the tomb began to 
stir again with returning life, and Jesus awoke from 
the profound sleep of death, and rose up from his 
rocky couch and stood upon his feet, and was again 
wholly himself ; and at once he knew where he was, 
and all that had happened. Moving away the stone 
from the mouth of the sepulchre, he came forth. 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 277 

and stood leaning on the stone, breathing the fresh 
morning air. To the guard, affrighted at this 
sudden and strange apparition, dressed all in white, 
and gleaming on them through the twilight, it 
seemed as if the earth, (jarred by the motion of 
the stone,) had quaked again, and this startling 
figure had alighted before them out of Heaven. 
Paralyzed with fear, they were at first struck mo- 
tionless, and became as dead men ; but soon, reco- 
vering themselves in a degree, they fled with the 
greatest precipitation to the city and to their em- 
ployers ; declaring, with the natural exaggeration 
of terror, that there had been an earthquake, and 
a supernatural messenger had appeared from Hea- 
ven, 'with eyes like lightning, and raiment white 
as snow,' and had removed the stone from the tomb, 
and sate upon it. 

In the meanwhile, Mary of Magdala, and Mary 
the mother of James, and other women who had 
followed Jesus from Galilee, were on their way to 
the tomb, bringing with them sweet spices to do 
honor to the dead, according to the customs of the 
country. They did not know that a guard was 
stationed at the tomb. Had they known it, they 
would hardly have ventured near the spot, to be 
exposed to the rude jests of those rough Roman 
24 



278 HISTORY OF JESUS* 

soldiers, especially as they must then have known 
also, that they would not be permitted to open the 
tomb. As they drew near to the place, it occurred 
to them that they would have difficulty in rolling 
away the stone. In this perplexity they reached 
the spot, and to their great alarm found the stone 
removed, the tomb open. 

At this sight, Mary of Magdala, thinking of 
Jesus only as the object of the most cruel persecu- 
tion, was instantly possessed with the conviction 
that his enemies had rifled the tomb of its contents ; 
determined that the dead body of one whom they 
so bitterly hated, should not rest in peace where his 
friends had laid it. Carried away by this very 
natural but precipitate impression, she ran back 
with the utmost haste and alarm to the city, to tell 
Peter and John that the tomb had been entered, and 
the body taken away. 

The other women remained on the spot, wonder- 
ing what could have happened ; supposing with 
Mary, that his relentless persecutors had pursued 
Jesus even after death, and wreaked their vengeance 
on his lifeless remains. With exclamations of sur- 
prise and grief they approached and locked into the 
tomb, and suddenly there appeared before them a 
person in a long white dress, who immediately spoke 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 279 

to them, bidding them not be afraid, saying that he 
knew whom they were seeking, Jesus, who had just 
been crucified, but that he was not there, (as they 
expected to find him.) ' The dead is not here : he 
is risen : but go tell his disciples and Peter that he 
is risen, and will meet them in Galilee, whither he 
goes before them : doubt not, it is as I tell you/ 

This unknown person, " a young man in a long 
white garment," as he is described in one of the 
re-cords, was, as I believe, no other than Jesus him- 
self, who, having risen, and come forth wrapped in 
the white grave-clothes, putting to flight by his ap- 
pearance the terrified guard, had, upon hearing the 
voices of the women approaching, re-entered the 
tomb, not wishing then to make himself known. I 
recognize Jesus in the unknown person by the 
particular mention made of Peter, who, when his 
master was suffering the most cruel treatment, had 
basely and with oaths disclaimed all knowledge of 
him, and who, without this express message, which 
breathes the god-like magnanimity of Jesus, might 
well fear, when assured that his master was alive 
again, that he himself would be disowned in return, 
as he well knew he so richly merited. At all events, 
even after receiving this hint of forgiveness, how 
must he have dreaded to meet again the master's eye ! 



280 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

In the uncertain twilight, the white linen cloth in 
which Jesus was wrapped, was the most conspicuous 
object. Since, of course, he must have taken off 
the cloth which was folded round his head, and it 
lay apart by itself, dimly visible in the faint light, 
it suggested to the excited imagination of some of 
the terrified women the presence of two persons in 
white ;. and they flew back to the city on the wings 
of joy and fear, and reported to the disciples that 
they had seen two angels at the tomb, who had told 
them that the master had risen ! 

In the meantime Peter and John, alarmed at the 
intelligence brought by Mary, hastened to the spot 
to verify her report. John, the youngest and most 
active, reached the tomb first ; but a natural hesita- 
tion came over him, and he paused to wait for Peter. 
As soon as Peter came up, they both entered the 
tomb, and found that the body had indeed disap- 
peared ; but to their amazement, the grave-clothes 
were left behind, part in one place, and part in an- 
other. Wondering at this circumstance, at a loss 
to understand why, when the body was taken away, 
the grave-clothes should have been left, they came 
out from the tomb, and went away ; leaving Mary 
there, who had followed them, and with whom, 
struck dumb by these mysterious events, they ex- 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 281 

changed not a word. Their silence satisfied her 
that it was even so, just as she had supposed : the 
body had been carried off. 

And Mary stood there and wept ; and as she 
wept, she stooped down and looked into the sepul- 
chre. Her attention was instantly arrested by two 
white objects, (the linen cloths,) but before she had 
time for anything but surprise, she heard some one 
speak to her, asking, ' Woman, what are you weeping 
for V Before she knew or thought whence precisely 
this simple question came, she uttered in reply the 
thought uppermost in her mind; l Because they 
have taken away my master, and I know not where 
they have laid him.' While in the act of uttering 
these words she heard some one behind her, for, as 
soon as they passed her lips, she turned round, and 
saw Jesus, who said to her, i Woman, what are you 
weeping for ? Whom do you seek V and who it was, 
I believe, that had put the question to her before, 
when she was stooping to look into the tomb, and 
not having caught her answer, was led to repeat it 
with an addition, as one naturally does when no 
answer has been returned to the first inquiry. It 
was natural also that Mary's posture should confuse 
her perceptions as to the direction whence the voice 
proceeded. As, with eyes blinded by her tears, 
24* 



282 HISTORY OF JESUS, 

she barely glanced at the person who spoke to her> 
she took him for the gardener, and without answer- 
ing his question again, she said : ' Sir, if you have 
borne him hence, tell me where you have laid him, 
and I will take him away.' Jesus said to her, 
4 Mary! r At the dear sound of that impressive 
voice she turned fully round, gazed at him for a 
moment with eyes all aflame with awe and rapture, 
and then fell breathless at his feet, exclaiming, 6 My 
master V So long did she remain in that attitude 
of reverence, so convulsively did she, in her emo- 
tion, grasp his knees, as if she could not enough 
assure herself that it was really he, flesh and blood, 
that he said to her, in effect, (so I understand 
the here somewhat obscure record,) 'Do not stop 
to embrace me now. You will have other oppor- 
tunities of seeing me. I have not yet left the 
world; but go and tell my disciples that I am 
about to ascend to my Father and their Father ; to 
my God and their Grod.' She then went and told 
them she had seen the master alive, and that he 
had said these things to her, 

When Mary, upon returning to the city, learned 
that the other women had seen two angels at the 
tomb, as they said and believed, immediately, with 
that precipitation which marks the whole action of 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 283 

her excited mind on this eventful morning, she 
concluded that the white objects she had seen when 
she looked into the sepulchre, and which had star- 
tled her so, were the very angels that had been 
seen by the women, and had spoken to them ; and 
that it was one of these angels that had asked her 
why she was weeping, when she was stooping down 
and looking into the tomb, and when she knew not 
whence the question came. And so she was per- 
fectly satisfied that she, too, had seen the angels, 
and that they had spoken to her ; and so she said 
always afterwards, in relating her part in these 
startling occurrences. It was, I repeat, from Jesus, 
behind her, that the first question, which she after- 
wards attributed to the angels, came ; and the cir- 
cumstance, that when she turned towards him he 
asked the same question more pointedly, looks as 
if he had asked the question before, without re- 
ceiving an answer. It is very natural that Mary, 
after she had seen the other women, and heard their 
story, should, in her characteristic haste, conclude 
that she, too, had seen the angels. But if, at the 
moment she saw the white objects in the tomb, she 
took them for angels, and believed that it was they 
who asked her why she wept, it is not at all likely 
that her attention would have been so readily drawn 



284 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

away from them. They would at once have so 
riveted her whole soul, that every avenue of sense 
would have been closed against all other sights 
and sounds. As it was, had there really been 
angels, clad in white, in the sepulchre, they were 
there, as it appears, only for show. They served 
no purpose; they communicated no intelligence. 
Mary turned her back upon them, to speak to 
one whom she supposed to be the gardener. 
Why seek we angels, then, the living, among the 
dead? 

It is stated in one of the records that, as the 
women were returning from the tomb with the mes- 
sage of the angels, they were met by Jesus, and 
that they prostrated themselves before him, and 
held him by his feet. It is easy to see how this 
mistake arose. Shortly after the women came into 
the city, saying that they had seen angels at the 
tomb, who told them that Jesus was alive, Mary 
came rushing in, saying that she had seen Jesus 
himself ! Now, as Mary and the other women had 
all gone to the tomb together, it is natural that 
some, to whom these different reports came, should 
take the impression that all the women had seen 
Jesus. It was Mary by whom he was first seen, 
and who held him by his feet. 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 285 

In the course of the Divine Story, which now 
draws reluctantly to its close, I have forborne to 
remark at any length upon the character of the 
records whence it is drawn ; but were ever writings 
so artless and truthful ? The character of Jesus 
himself is hardly more fully impressed with truth 
and nature than these accounts of him which have 
come down to us. Their authors tell the story 
with such simplicity, with such unbounded careless- 
ness, with such an entire absence of any thought 
but of stating facts just as they seemed to them, 
so all unconscious were they of the True Spirit by 
which they were animated to their work, that the 
Life of Jesus, as it is told in the Four Gospels, ap- 
pears emphatically to have written itself. It is 
what it is, by no design of their authors ; by no 
human will. These writings " grew as grows the 
grass.' ' The old doctrine of Plenary Inspiration 
in regard to them, comes true after all ; and true 
in a far deeper and more natural sense than has yet 
been imagined. In fine, the more I have studied 
them, the more deeply am I impressed with their 
character as matchless specimens of truth-telling ; 
not that their authors always state things just as 
they were, but they always give us the facts, with 
childlike freedom and simplicity, just as they appre- 



286 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

tended them ; so that, when we have once come to 
understand their modes of thought and expression, 
we can, by means of the form and pressure which 
the occurrences they relate, took and left in their 
minds, arrive, in numerous instances, very nearly 
at the real state of the case. 

And in no part do these records more fully breathe 
the life of truth and nature, than in their accounts 
of what happened at the sepulchre on that morning 
when Jesus reappeared alive. So wondrously true 
are they to all those passions which were then in 
full play, to the wonder, the fear, the joy which 
were all awakened, and which thrill through the 
whole story, that it is upon the character of the 
testimony thus afforded to the resurrection of Jesus, 
that my faith in this fact mainly rests. The fact 
itself is involved in the thickest mystery. What 
were the conditions of his existence after he had 
undergone the awful change of death ? Where was 
he after his resurrection, when not with his dis- 
ciples ? And what finally became of him ? These 
are questions which not only baffle curiosity, but, 
like the creation of the first man, they repel every 
attempt at a solution. Nevertheless, that he was 
alive again, on that memorable morning, it is out 
of my power to question, surrounded though the 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 287 

fact is, with these inevitable difficulties. It is at- 
tested by evidence which, as I have said, no human 
mind had any thought of furnishing, the evidence 
of Nature, of God himself. 

How he woke to life again, we can only faintly 
surmise. It was by the native force of his mighty 
God-inspired being, prompted to this unprecedented 
act by the love he bore his disciples, and by his 
interest in the Truth, with which his inmost life was 
identified. That re-animated his lifeless body. 
Why he came to life again, consenting to re-visit 
and re-occupy that poor tenement of clay, I cannot 
undertake to say ; except that I do not see how, 
had he not re-appeared to his disciples, they could 
have been saved from utter despair. His death, 
much as he sought to prepare them for it, came 
upon them at last like a thunderbolt, shivering into 
atoms all their fond visions, but giving them no light. 
They were lost in the thick gloom that succeeded. 
And I know not how those timid, bewildered men 
would ever have emerged from that cloud, the 
brave Apostles of Everlasting Truth, clad in power 
and great glory, had not Jesus shown himself to 
them again in person. In the light of his renewed 
presence, though the pinnacles of the Messiah's 
kingdom began again to glitter in the distance, and 



288 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

they asked : " Lord, wilt thou now restore the king- 
dom to Israel?" yet their love for him was kindled 
into a new enthusiasm, and their devotion to him 
was renewed with increased vigor, and they post- 
poned their ancient hopes, and lived and died in 
his service, doing as he commanded. 

After the brief interview with Mary at the sepul- 
chre, Jesus, it is recorded, was seen repeatedly. 
He joined two of the disciples, as they were jour- 
neying to Emmaus, and continued with them for 
some time ; but they did not recognize him at first ; 
and when they did recognize him, they were amazed 
and bewildered, and he disappeared from their 
sight. Again, in the evening, when the disciples 
were all together, he came among them on two 
different occasions, w T ith an interval of a week. In 
the last chapter of John's account, we are told that 
Jesus appeared to seven of them while they were 
engaged in fishing on the Sea of Galilee. It is 
also said by Paul, in one of his epistles, that he 
was seen by more than five hundred of the disciples 
at once; although, with a careless honesty, it is 
elsewhere stated that some doubted w T hether it were 
really he. After these interviews with his disciples, 
at different times, during forty days after his cruci- 
fixion, it is recorded that, after commanding them 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 289 

to go abroad and publish to the world all that they 
had seen and heard, he led them out to Bethany, 
and gave them his farewell blessing, and after that 
was seen by them no more. 

What he is stated to have said on these several 
occasions, sounds so like him, is in such keeping 
with his manner of speaking, and comes in so natu- 
rally, that it goes far to establish his identity after 
his resurrection. What human mind could have 
joined to the heaven- wrought texture of this his- 
tory, so luminous with reality, another piece, which, 
fabricated by the ingenuity of man, would not have 
shown that it was woven in quite another loom ? 
Nevertheless, it must be confessed that the notices 
of Jesus, after his resurrection, are very brief and 
imperfect. They suggest questions which will not 
be suppressed, and cannot be answered. 

What finally became of him is known only to 
God. Here is a secret, which, in our present state 
of knowledge, is unfathomable. As we would not 
be wise on this point above what is written, it can- 
not fail to arrest our attention that, in the record 
attributed to his favorite disciple, no mention is 
made of his final disappearance, and that in the 
other three records there is not a word that requires 
us to understand their authors as intending even 
25 



290 HISTORY OF JESUS. 

to say that he ascended visibly into Heaven. They 
simply state that he bade them farewell, was parted 
from them and carried up into Heaven. It may be 
that they meant to be understood that they saw him 
ascend. And it may be that they have stated only 
their own inference. He disappeared from their 
sight; and they, of course, and justly, inferred 
that he went up to God. It is true, in the first 
chapter of Luke's History of the Acts of the 
Apostles we have a somewhat particular account 
of the visible ascension of Jesus. But when we 
consider the silence of the four principal records on 
this point, and bring into view the ease and fre- 
quency with which inferences are converted into 
facts, and facts are amplified, we shall hesitate to 
accord implicit assent to a statement which does not 
profess to be given by an eyewitness, and is not in 
accordance with the spiritual character of Jesus. 

And thus is it with all things. The small sphere 
of our vision is encircled with an impenetrable 
darkness. And all that we know is, that all life is 
passing " from mystery to mystery, from God to 
God." 

My chief aim, in the foregoing pages, has been 
to give expression to a simple sense of Truth. 



HISTORY OF JESUS. 291 

While many have gone away, each to his own, 
hopeless of beholding the living Son of God, I seem 
to myself to have been standing, for many years, 
at the dark tomb of superstition, to which he was 
long ago consigned by hands that meant to do him 
honor; and although the military guard, so long 
stationed there by Church and State, has disap- 
peared, and the stone, with its priestly seal, has 
been rolled away, yet it has seemed to me that he 
had been borne hence, and I knew not where they 
had laid him. Like Mary, I have thirsted to know 
whither he had been carried. At last, he has come 
forth from the dim, cold sepulchre, and I recognize 
him, glowing in all the fresh and breathing beauty 
of nature, in this ' young man/ clad in the white 
robes of Innocence and Truth, whose wondrous 
story I have here endeavored to tell. What heart 
will not prostrate itself at his feet, and cry, " My 
master !" And I can wonder no more that his 
first disciples exhausted the language of reverence, 
when they spoke of him, and that he has been wor- 
shipped for centuries, as more than an angel. 



THE END 



CATALOGUE OF BOOKS 



PUBLISHED BY 



CROSBY & NICHOLS, |j 



111 Washington Street, 
BOSTON. 



Crosby & Nichols have for sale a general 
assortment of Books in all the various depart- 
ments of literature, comprising Theological, 
School, Juvenile, and Miscellaneous Books of all 
kinds. 

* # * All Periodicals, both American and For- 
eign, supplied promptly. A liberal discount to 
clubs, societies, or individuals, where several are 
taken. 

Foreign Books imported to order by every steamer. 



BOSTON: 
WM. CROSBY AND H. P. NICHOLS. 

Ill Washington Street. j@ 

1850. 



CROSBY & NICHOLS S PUBLICATIONS. 



A LIST OF BOOKS 

RECENTLY PUBLISHED BY 

WM, CROSBY & H. P. NICHOLS, 

111 WASHINGTON STREET, BOSTON. 



A MEMOIR OF WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING, with 
Extracts from his Correspondence and Manuscripts. Edited 
by his nephew, Wm. Henry Channing. Comprised in three 
volumes, of from 450 to 500 pages each, uniform with the best 
edition of the Works. Two very superior portraits of Dr. 
Channing appear in the volumes ; one from a painting by All- 
ston, the other by Gambadella. Price $ 3.00. 

Contents.— Part First,— Parentage and Birth; Boyhood; College Life; 
Richmond; Studies and Settlement. Part Second, —Early Ministry ; Spirit- 
ual Growth; The Unitarian Controversy; Middle-age Ministry; European 
Journey. Part Third, — The Ministry and Literature; Religion and Philoso- 

Ehy ; Social Reforms; The Antisla very Movement ; Politics; Friends; Home 
rife; Notes. 

NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 

"A more interesting and instructive biographical work we have never read. 
High as was our opinion of Channing, — of his intellectual and moral worth, — 
the perusal of this work has convinced us that we never duly estimated him. 

His letters reveal his character more fully than his sermons and essays. 

In his letters he lays his heart entirely open ; and no man, no matter what his 
opinions or prejudices, can read them without saying, — ' Channing was, in- 
deed, a great and good man, — one who lived for the world!' " — Christian 
Messenger. 

_ "Only one who was similar in purpose and temper, — who felt like aspira- 
tions, hopes, and faith, — could at all do justice to the distinguished subject. 
The present book must, therefore, we are sure, give us Channing's character 
in its completeness, and true harmony and proportions of parts." — Salem 
Observer. 

" These memoirs of a great and good man will, we apprehend, obtain an un- 
commonly extensive circulation, not only among the denomination of Chris- 
tians in which he ranked himself, but with all who reverence purity of charac- 
ter, an enlarged philanthropy, and eminent talents, guided by virtue and piety." 
— Salem Register. 

u If we mistake not, now is the very time in God's providence when the bi- 
ography of William Ellery Channing could best make its appearance. We have 
heard that a distinguished divine, of different speculative religious views from 
Dr. Channing, has recently said, — ' Channing is greatly needed among us at 
this present moment.' Behold him here! We doubt not that the biography 
thus prepared is to make a great impression on the age that is passing, and that 
is yet to come." — Christian Register. 



crosby & Nichols's publications. 3 

SERMONS ON CHRISTIAN COMMUNION. Designed to 
promote the Culture of the Religious Affections. Edited by 
Rev. T. R. Sullivan. 12mo. pp. 403. Price, $ 1.00. 

This work is not confined to the subject of the Lord's Supper, but "forms 
a series of practical discourses of the persuasive kind, relating: to repentance, 
or the duty of commencing the Christian course, — to edification, or the en- 
couragements to progressive Christian improvement, — and to the eucharistic 
service, as affording exercise for all the grateful and devout affections of the 
heart in every stage of its subjection to Christian discipline." — Preface. 

The following is a list of the writers : — 
Rev. H. A. Miles. Lowell. I Rev. G. E. Ellis. Charlestown. 



" F. Parkman, D. D., Boston. 

" S. Judd, Augusta. 

" F. D. Huntington, Boston, 

M C. T. Brooks, Newport. 

" N. Hall. Dorchester. 

u J. I T. Coolidge. Boston. 

" G. W. Briggs, Plymouth. 

M A. A. Livermore, Keene. 

" J. Whitman, Lexington. 

11 J. W. Thompson, Salem. 

*• H. W. Bellows, New York. 

" E. S. Gannett, D. D., Boston. 

" A. P. Peabody, Portsmouth. 

" J. Walker, D D., Cambridge. 

" C. Robbins, Boston. 



G. Putnam, D. D., Roxbury, 

J. H. Morison, Milton. 

A. Young, D. D.. Boston. 

E. B. Hall, D. D., Providence. 

S. G. Bulfinch, Nashua. 

O. Dewey, D. D. , New York. 

S. Osgood. Providence. 

A. Hill, Worcester. 

W. H. Furness, D.D., Philadelphia. 

N. L. Frothingham, D.D., Boston. 

E. Peabody, Boston. 

S. K. Lothkop, " 

C. A. Bartol, " 

A. B. Muzzey, Cambridge. 



"The design of the work is admirable, and we doubt not it is admirably 
executed, and will promote the best interests of our churches. We chanced to 
open at Sermon XVIII., on Christian Education, and were pleased to see the 
idea of Dr. Bushnell's celebrated book on * Christian Nurture ' illustrated and 
urged in a sermon by Dr. Putnam, preached two years before Dr. Bushnell's 
book made its appearance." — Christian Register. 

11 The tone of these sermons, their living interest, their unpremeditated vari- 
ety in unity, fit them well for this purpose, — close personal influence on i»inds 
of widely differing views, united in the one great aim of a Christian life. We 
shall probably take an early opportunity of making some selections. " — Chris- 
tian Inquirer. 

"We think the volume is upon the whole one of the best volumes of dis- 
courses ever issued from the American press." — Boston Daily Atlas. 

THE GOSPEL NARRATIVES, their Origin, Peculiarities, 
and Transmission. By Rev. Henry A. Miles. 16mo. 
pp. 174. Price, 50 cents. 

This work is designed for families and Sunday Schools, and contains a com- 
parison of each Gospel with the education, life, and character of its author, 
and with the purpose which he had in view in its composition ; as also an ac- 
count of the transmission of the Gospels down to our time, and the evidence 
of their uncorrupted preservation. 

" This volume by Mr. Miles has substantial value. It is by the circulation 
and use of such books that Christian knowledge is to be extended, and Chris- 
tian faith confirmed. By a thorough study even of this small work in child- 
hood, many persons might have the satisfaction of carrying through life a clear 
and connected idea of the biographies of Jesus, and of the nature of the exter- 
nal evidence in their favor, instead of remaining in vague uncertainty on the 
whole subject. Bringing into a simple and popular form, and small compass, 
information not hitherto accessible, except to a limited number of persons, the 
'Gospel Narratives ' will be interesting to the general reader, whether youthful 
oar adult. It must, without doubt, be introduced in all our Sunday Schools, 
and will rank among the most important manuals." 



4 crosby & Nichols's publications. 

NAOMI ; or Boston Two Hundred Years Ago. A Tale of the 
Quaker Persecution in New England. By Eliza Buckmin- 
ster Lee, Author of " The Life of Jean Paul." Second Edi- 
tion. 12mo. pp. 324. Price, 75 cents. 

The first edition of this popular book was exhausted within a month after its 
publication. 

"Mrs. Lee has given the public a most agreeable book. Her style is ele- 
yated and earnest. Her sentiments, of the pure and the true. The characters 
are well conceived, and are presented each in strong individuality, and with 
such apparent truthfulness as almost to leave us in doubt whether they are ' be- 
ings of the mind,' or were real men and women who bore the parts she assigns 
them in those dark tragedies that stained this ' fair heritage of freedom ' in the 
early days of Massachusetts." — Worcester Palladium. 

" We have been exceedingly interested in this book, and recommend it as 
a beautiful picture of female piety and quiet heroism, set in a frame of history 
and tradition, that cannot fail to please every one connected, however remotely, 
with the land of the Puritans. The accomplished author of ' The Life of Jean 
Paul' has produced an American novel which we should like to see followed by 
others illustrative of the facts and manners of the olden time." — Christian 
Inquirer. 

THE MARRIAGE OFFERING. Designed as a Gift to the 
Newly-married. Edited by Rev. A. A. Livermore. 16mo. 
pp. 215. Price, 50 cents. 

*' It was a happy thought that suggested such a volume. We were not aware 
before that there was so much and so various Christian literature on the sub- 
ject." — Christian Register. 

MARTYRIA ; a Legend, wherein are contained Homilies, Con- 
versations, and Incidents of the Reign of Edward the Sixth. 
Written by William Mountford, Clerk. With an Introduc- 
tion to the American Edition, by Rev. F. D. Huntington. 
16mo. pp. 348. Price, 75 cents. 

"The charm of the book lies in the elevated tone of thought and moral sen- 
timent which pervades it. You feel, on closing the volume, as if leaving some 
ancient cathedral, where your soul had been mingling with ascending anthems 
and prayers. There is scarcely a page which does not contain some fine strain 
of thought or sentiment, over which you shut the book that you may pause 
and meditate. 

"We recommend the volume to our readers, with the assurance that they 
will find few works in the current literature of the day so well worth perusal." 
— Christian Register. 

u This is really an original book. We have seen nothing for a long time 
more fresh or true. The writer has succeeded wonderfully, in taking himself 
and his readers into the heart of the age he describes. What is more, he has 
uttered words and thoughts which stir up the deep places of the soul. Let 
those read who wish to commune with the true and unpretending martyr-spirit,, 
the spread of faith and endurance, courage, self-denial, forgiveness, prayer. 

" Of all the treatises we have ever read on marriage, we have seen none so 
good as one here called a • Marriage Sermon'; not that we would ask any 
couple to hear it all on their marriage day, but we commend it to all who are 
married, or intend to be. The whole book is precious. " — Providence Journal. 

" There are few religious books which breathe a finer spirit than this singu- 
lar volume. The author's mind seems to have meditated deeply on the awful 
realities of life. In the thoughtful flow of his periods, and the grave, earnest 
eloquence of particular passages, we are sometimes reminded of the Old English 
prose-writers. The work is a c curiosity ' of literature, well worth, an attentive 
perusal." — Graham's Magazine, 



crosby & Nichols's publications. 5 

A TRANSLATION OF PAUL'S EPISTLE TO THE 
ROMANS, with an Introduction and Notes. By William 
A. Whitvvell, Minister of" the Congregational Society in 
Wilton, N. H. 16mo. pp. 116. Price, 50 cents. 

'•'We would express a high opinion of the book, and can assure the Chris- 
tian reader who will compare it carefully with our common version, that he 
will rise up from the joint perusal of the two with a better understanding of 
Paul than he had before." — Christian Register. 

CHRISTIANITY THE DELIVERANCE OF THE SOUL 
AND ITS LIFE. By William Mountford. With an In- 
troduction by Ret. F. D. Huntington. 16mo. pp. 118. 
Price, 37J cents. 

" Mr. Mountford is full of warm religious feeling. He brings religion home 
to the heart, and applies it as the guide of the life." — London Inquirer. 

SELF-FORMATION; or the History of an Individual Mind: 
Intended as a Guide for the Intellect through Difficulties to 
Success. By a Fellow of a College. 12mo. pp. 504. Price, 
$1.00. 

"The publishers have done good service by bringing forward an American 
edition of this work. It may be most unreservedly recommended, especially to 
the young." — Daily Advertiser. 

*' Your gift of ■ Self-Formation ' is truly a welcome one, and I am greatly 
obliged to you for it. It is a work of quite original character, and I esteem is 
(in common with all I know of, who have read it) as possessed of very rare 
merit. I am glad, for the cause of good education and sound principle, that 
you have republished it, and I wish every young man and woman in the com- 
munity might be induced to read it carefully. It is several years since I looked 
into it in the English edition, — but I yet retain a vivid impression of the great 
delight it afforded me, and I shall gladly avail of the opportunity of renewing 
it." — Extract from a Letter. 

" This is emphatically a good book, which may be read with profit by all 
classes, but more especially by young men, to whose wants it is admirably 
adapted. The American editor is no doubt right in saying, that it is almost 
without a question the most valuable and useful work on self education thai 
has appeared in our own, if not in any other language." — New York Tribune. 

THOUGHTS ON MORAL AND SPIRITUAL CULTURE. 
By Rev. Robert C. Waterston. Second Edition, revised. 
16mo. pp. 302. Price, 62J cents. 

This book has met with a ready sale in this country, and has been republished 
in England. A London periodical, in reviewing it, says: — "We will ven- 
ture to predict that it will soon take its place on the shelves of our religious 
libraries, beside Ware ■ On the Christian Character,' Greenwood's * Lives of the 
Apostles,' and other works to which we might refer as standard publications, 
the value of which is not likely to be diminished by the lapse of time or the 
caprices of fashion." 

"The sense of duty in parents and teachers may be strengthened and elevated 
by contemplating the high standard which is here held up to them. The style 
has the great merit of being an earnest one, and there are many passages which 
rise into genuine eloquence and the glow of poetry." — N. A. Review. 

" The Lecture ' On the Best Means of exerting a Moral and Spiritual Influence 
in Schools,' no teacher, male or female, possessed of any of the germs of im- 
provement, can read without benefit." — Hon. Horace Mann, Secretary oftkz 
Board of Education* 



6 crosby & Nichols's publications. 

DOMESTIC WORSHIP. By William H. Furness, Pastor 
of the First Congregational Unitarian Church in Philadelphia, 
Third Edition. l2mo. pp. 272. Price, 75 cents. 

" We are glad to see this book. It is a work of great and peculiar excellence. 
It is not a compilation from other books of devotion ; nor is it made up of 
conventional phrases and Scripture quotations, which have been so long em- 
ployed as the language of prayer, that they are repeated without thought and 
without feeling. It is admirably adapted to the purpose for which it was writ- 
ten ; and it may be read again and again with great interest and profit by any 
one, who desires to enrich his mind with the purest sentiments of devotion, 
and with the language in which it finds its best expression. Here we have the 
genuine utterances of religious sensibility, — fresh, natural, and original, as 
they come from a mind of singular fertility and beauty, and a heart overflow- 
ing with love to God and love to man. They seem not like prayers made with 

hands, to be printed in a book, but real praying, full of spirit and life 

So remarkable is their tone of reality and genuineness, that we cannot bring 
ourselves to regard them as compositions written for a purpose, but rather as 
the actual utterances of a pure and elevated soul in reverent and immediate 
communion with the Infinite Father." — Christian Examiner. 

LAYS FOR THE SABBATH. A Collection of Religious 
Poetry. Compiled by Emily Taylor. Revised, with Addi- 
tions, by John Pierpont. 16mo. pp. 288. Price, 75 cents. 

*' It is simple and unpretending ; and though some of the pieces are probably 
familiar to most readers, they all breathe a pure and elevated spirit, and here 
and there is an exquisite effusion of genius, which answers to the holiest wants 
of the soul. 

"Not only great pleasure may be derived from such a volume, but lasting 
and useful impressions. Many are keenly alive to the harmony of verse and 
the fresh outbursts of poetic feeling, who would pore with delight over such a 
volume, and many might thus be won to high thought and serious reflection." 
— Christian Examiner. 

THE YOUNG MAIDEN. Seventh Edition. By Rev. A. B. 
Muzzey, Author of " The Young Man's Friend," " Sunday 
School Guide," etc., etc. 16mo. pp. 264. Price, 62J cents. 

Contents. — The Capacities of Woman ; Female Influence; Female Educa- 
tion ; Home ; Society ; Love ; Single Life ; Reasons for Marriage ; Conditions 
of True Marriage; Society of Young Men; First Love; Conduct during En- 
gagement j Trials of Woman and her Solace ; Encouragements. 

"The sentiments and principles enforced in this book may be safely com- 
mended to the attention of women of all ranks. Its purpose is excellent 
throughout ; and as it is everywhere governed by a just and amiable spirit, we 
believe it is calculated to do much good." — London Atlas. 

" A little work, well worthy, from its good sense and good feeling, to be 
a permanent and favorite monitor to our fair countrywomen." — Morning 
Herald. 

A HISTORY OF SUNDAY SCHOOLS and of Religious Edu- 
cation, from the Earliest Times. By Lewis G. Pray. Embel- 
lished with two Engravings. 16mo. pp. 270. Price, 62^ cents. 

"The author has been for a long period engaged in the cause of which he 
has now become the historian; and if ardor, perseverance, and faithfulness in 
that service qualify him to write its history, we know of no one to whom it 
could have been more properly confided." — Portsmouth Journal. 

"A volume of great interest to all who have at heart the subject discussed " 
~- Literary World. 



crosby & Nichols's publications. 



LIFE IN THE SICK-ROOM. Essays, by Harriet Martt- 
neau. With an Introduction to the American Edition, by 
Mrs. Follen. Second American Edition. 16mo. pp. 196. 
Price, 62£ cents. 

"For the principles which it inculcates, for the exalted ideal it presents, 
for the renovating spirit with which it is filled, the book cannot fail to be a 
blessing to humanity." — Christian Examiner. 

EUTHANASY, or Happy Talk towards the End of Life. 
By William Mountford. Author of " Martyria." I6mo. 
pp. 

" This is a book which will prove an incalculable treasure to those who are in 
sorrow and bereavement, and cannot be perused by any thoughtful mind with- 
out pleasure and improvement." — Christian Examiner. 

THE CHRISTIAN PARENT. By Rev. A. B. Muzzey, 

Author of " The Young Maiden," &c, &c. 16mo. Price, 
75 cents. 

RELIGIOUS CONSOLATION. Edited by Rev. Ezra S. Gan- 
nett. 16mo. Price, 50 cents. 

Contents. — The Good of Affliction; The Mourner Comforted; Erroneous 
Views of Death ; The Departed ; Death and Sleep ; Immortality ; Trust in God 
under Afflictions; Filial Trust ; The Future Life ; Friends in Heaven; Hope; 
Thanksgiving in Affliction; Trust amidst Trial; Life and Death ; The Voices 
of the Dead ; To the Memory of a Friend ; A Prayer in Affliction ; Duties of 
the Afflicted ; The Mourner Blessed; Consolation; The Dangers of Adversity ; 
Trust in Divine Love; The Promises of Jesus; The Believer's Hope: The 
Uses of Affliction; Time Passing; The Christian's Death; The Hope of Immor- 
tality ; God our Father. 

THOUGHTS ; selected from the Works of William Ellert 
Channing, D. D. 3*2mo. pp. 160. Price, 37J cents. 

"This is a diamond of a volume, the purpose of which is well expressed in 
the following ' thought ' from Channing, which is put on the title-page: — 

" 'Sometimes a single word, spoken by the voice of genius, goes far into 
the heart. A hint, a suggestion, an undefined delicacy of expression, teaches 
more than we gather from volumes of less gifted men.' 

"Those who differ in theological views from the gifted Channing will of 
course find many thoughts in this little volume not to their taste. But those to 
whom any theological views have ever done much good will nevertheless prize 
the book for its thoughts. Thoughts they are. not faint reflections of thought. 
And those who would be wise above all things prize to know what can be 
thought on all sides of every important subject. To enrich our columns' we 
borrow a gem or two." — Chronotype. 

"A collection of noble thoughts, that may well take its place by the side of 
the celebrated thoughts of Pascal, which have in them more of metaphysics, but 
less that touches the human heart. It makes a beautiful pocket volume." — 
Christian Examiner. 

"We have long desired to see a book of this kind, and now, from a slight 
examination, believe that it is well done. It is a beautiful collection of beauti- 
ful thoughts, and must be a welcome possession, not only for all who agree 
with Dr. Channing in his peculiar religious opinions, but for all who value 
lofty sentiments worthily expressed, and who by the influence of such thoughts 
would be strengthened to duty, or raised to a higher sphere of contemplation." 
— Christian Register. 



8 crosby & Nichols's publications. 

DAVID ELLINGTON. By Rev. Henry Ware, Jr. With 
other Extracts from his Writings. 18mo. pp. 192. Price, 
37J cents. 

"Mr. Ware has left very few things which will do so much towards pro- 
moting the great object for which he lived and labored. The simple story of the 
every-day life of a good man, told as these stories are told, finds a response in 
the hearts of those most indifferent to the great concerns of virtue and religion ; 
it reaches and touches what nothing else, not the eloquent preaching of an 
apostle, could reach and touch." 

CHRISTIAN CONSOLATIONS. Sermons designed to fur- 
nish Comfort and Strength to the Afflicted. By Rev. A. P. 
Peaeody, Pastor of the South Church, Portsmouth, N. H. 
16mo. pp. 320. Price, 75 cents. 

" We welcome with almost as much surprise as satisfaction the appearance 
of a volume of discourses as excellent as those of Mr. Peabody. They are rich 
in thought, and of a high order of literary merit." — N. A. Review. 

THE GENERAL FEATURES OF THE MORAL GOV- 
ERNMENT OF GOD. By A. B. Jacocks. 16mo. pp. 94. 
Price, 37J cents. 

GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF 
NATURE : with an Outline of some of its recent Develop- 
ments among the Germans, embracing the Philosophical Sys- 
tems of Schelling and Hegel, and Oken's System of Nature. 
By J. B. Stallo, A. M., lately Professor of Analytical Mathe- 
matics, Natural Philosophy, and Chemistry in St. John's 
College, N. Y. 12mo. pp.532. Price, $1.25. 

"It grapples with the most abstruse problems, and tugs fiercely to pluck out 
the heart of their mystery. No difficulty is too great for the author to meet, 
and none seems able to upset his theory. In truth, the book is one of the most 
profound ever published in Boston, and whatever opinion may be given regard- 
ing its principles, none can gainsay its vigor of understanding and reach of 
learning. The pertinent question, Who reads an American book? will change 
somewhat its meaning, if American literature takes the abstruse direction indi- 
cated by Mr. Stallo's volume. In that event, our books will remain unread, 
not because they are too shallow, but because they are too deep. 55 — Boston 
Courier. 

MORNING AND EVENING MEDITATIONS, for every Day 
in a Month. By Miss Carpenter (daughter of the late Dr. 
Lant Carpenter). 16mo. pp. 312. Price, 62J cents. 

"The compiler of this work has rendered good service to all possessed of 
Christian sympathies. 55 — Literary World. 

"We like its spirit, and believe it will prove an excellent closet companion 
for those who will faithfully use it. 55 — Christian Register. 

THE WORDS OF CHRIST j from the New Testament. 16mo 
pp. 150. Price, 50 cents. 

"The compiler has most happily collected the words of Christ, so that, by 
the slightest reference possible to the tables, every text is ascertained under the 
several heads. It will prove very beneficial to the Biblical scholar, clergyman, 
and Sunday-school teacher.' 5 — Christian World. 



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